The Independent High Electoral Commission of Iraq (IHEC) announced Saturday the final results of the country's provincial elections.

The final results re-affirmed the partial preliminary results which showed that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Dawlat al-Qanun (State of Law) coalition comes ahead in eight provinces, including the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, with winning a total of 97 seats out of 378 seats in 12 of Iraq's 18 provinces.

Maliki's best results were in Baghdad and Basra, where his coalition won 20 seats of Baghdad's 58 seats and 16 seats out of 35 in the oil hub city of Basra.

The final results showed one change in Diyala province, as the National Alliance of Diyala, a Shiite bloc, which came second in the partial results, took the lead in the final results to replace a Sunni-backed bloc named Iraqiat Diyala led by a tribal leader Amir Khaizaran.

On April 25, the IHEC announced the preliminary results covering 87 percent of the ballot in 12 of Iraq's 18 provinces.

The result also showed that Mutahidoun bloc, led by Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni, came second in Baghdad with seven seats.

Motahidoun also came second in the mainly Sunni province of Salahudin with five seats after the Coalition of Iraqi People, led by the current provincial governor Ahmed Abdullah which won seven seats of the provincial 29 seats.

Another winner in the local polls was the Shiite bloc named al- Mowaten Coalition, led by cleric Ammar al-Hakim, which got 59 seats in ten of the 12 provinces. The partial results showed that the bloc came in the second place in seven of Iraqi Shiite provinces in central and southern the country.

On April 20, about 51 percent of some 14 million eligible voters turned up in some 32, 000 polling stations across 12 of the Iraqi provinces to elect their 378 provincial leaders out of over 8,000 candidates.

The three provinces of the autonomous Kurdistan region, the disputed northern province of Kirkuk and the two unrest-hit Sunni Arab provinces of Anbar and Nineveh are not covered in the elections. Endi

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)