By Rania El Gamal and Khalid al-Ansary
Baghdad - Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki pulled ahead on Sunday in early results of an election Iraqis hoped would end years of sectarian strife, but a divided vote suggested long and fraught talks to form a government are ahead.
Early results showed Maliki's State of Law bloc ahead in seven of 18 provinces, with the Iraqiya list headed by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi in second place, leading in five.
The Iraqi National Alliance (INA), Maliki's main competitor among Iraq's Shi'a majority, trailed close behind, the last of three blocs leading a divided vote that reflects a nation fragmented by decades of sectarian and ethnic conflict.
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The outcome of Iraq's first parliamentary poll since 2005 will shape its future as nascent stability is tested by the coming US troop withdrawal and political struggles undermining Iraq's efforts to re-establish itself on the world stage.
Maliki, who many Iraqis credit for improving security, won almost twice as many votes as the INA in southern Basra, ground zero for a wave of new investment into Iraq's rich oil sector.
Allawi's Iraqiya, a secularist, cross-sectarian list, was a distance third in Basra, but initial results showed him sweeping western Anbar, a stronghold for minority Sunnis whose long political dominance ended with Saddam Hussein's ouster in 2003.
Allawi, a secular Shi'a, also galvanised support among Sunni Arab voters in northern Nineveh, still gripped by a tenacious Sunni Islamist insurgency.
The early results represent more than three million votes of about 12 million cast. Final results are not expected for weeks.
Anxious politicians have criticised Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) for delaying results for days, heightening tension and drawing attention to charges of fraud.
Maliki, in an address to the National Security Council on national television, acknowledged that the March 7 vote had some problems but said that no election had "zero violations".
"There was manipulation," he said. "But it does not change the results."
Allawi's Iraqiya list has put forward a long list of complaints about fraud, including ballots found in the garbage and more than 200 000 soldiers who were unable to vote because their names did not appear on official rosters.
IHEC officials say almost 2 000 complaints were logged, far less than in provincial elections last year. The United Nations, which has been coaching IHEC before and after the vote, has downplayed the complaints. - Reuters
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