Baghdad vote recount over, no fraud found

A recount of 2.5 million votes cast in Baghdad in Iraq's March 7 election has been completed and no fraud was found, an Iraqi election official said on Friday, making it likely the final tally will not change, as insurgents attacked players and spectators at a soccer match killing 25 and wounding 100 others.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's predominantly Shiite electoral coalition demanded the recount, alleging fraud, after coming second in the parliamentary election, two seats behind a cross-sectarian bloc led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

A reversal in the results could have angered Allawi's Sunni backers, who see the secular Shiite politician as a champion of the influence they feel they lost with the 2003 fall of Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein and as a bulwark against Shiite Iran.

"There is no proof ... that there was fraud or manipulation or big mistakes," said Qassim al-Aboudi, a spokesman for the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC).

The results of the recount, which began on May 3, will be made public on Monday, Aboudi said.

There is no proof ... that there was fraud or manipulation or big mistakes

Qassim al-Aboudi, High Electoral Commission

No change

An IHEC official who asked not to be named said he did not think the recount would change the final result.

Allawi's Iraqiya coalition rode strong support from minority Sunnis to gain 91 parliamentary seats compared to 89 for Maliki's State of Law bloc.

State of Law has announced a tie-up with the Iran-friendly Iraqi National Alliance, the other main Shiite-led political grouping, which finished third with 70 seats. Together they would form the largest bloc in the next 325-seat parliament.

U.S. Ambassador to Baghdad Christopher Hill has voiced confidence that Iraq is headed towards a new government, but said on Sunday that no front-runner had yet emerged to lead the country.

Hill said the merger of State of Law and INA had created a "Shiite mega party," but noted that the choice of a new premier was unclear.

"The issue of who will be the prime minister is yet to be determined and obviously it will be a subject of great competition in the weeks ahead," he added.

The time it is taking to certify the election results and start to form a government could make the country vulnerable to a slide back into the sectarian violence unleashed after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Attack on football match

Dozens have died in attacks carried out since the ballot by suspected Sunni Islamist insurgents seeking to exploit the political vacuum and tensions between Sunnis and Shiites.

The latest was Friday when a car bomb and a suicide blast ripped through a football match in north Iraq, killing 25 people and leaving around 100 others wounded.

The attacks struck during the second half of a match between two local teams in an unprotected ground in the predominantly Shiite Turkmen town of Tal Afar, 380 kilometers (240 miles) north of Baghdad, a local police officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"Many people were gathered to watch the match," Hussein Nashad, who attended the match, told AFP by telephone from a hospital in Tal Afar where he was being treated for shock.

"We heard a loud explosion and the people behind me shielded me from the shrapnel," the 29-year-old Nashad said.