BBC reports on the preliminary election results:

The Iraqi Accord Front came second with 18.6% of the vote in Baghdad Province, partial results from 89% of the ballot boxes showed. The Shia-led United Iraqi Alliance won 58% of the vote in Iraq's largest province, where 2,161 candidates ran for 59 of the Council of Representatives' 275 seats. Former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's secular Iraqi National List came third. The election commission also announced that the United Iraqi Alliance was ahead in Basra and eight other southern provinces, and that the Kurdistan Alliance was leading in four northern provinces, including oil-rich Tamim. In the four remaining provinces, where the population of Sunni Arabs is largest, the Iraqi Accord Front came top. The front won 73% of the vote in Anbar Province, 36% in Nineveh, 33% in Salahuddin, 36% in Diyala.

The BBC's Middle East analyst, Roger Hardy, says the results in Baghdad will be bad news for both Mr Allawi and the Iraqi Accord Front, which wants to increase Sunni Arab representation in a parliament currently dominated by Shia and Kurdish parties. To judge from the votes counted so far, the Shia alliance is likely to retain its dominant position, our correspondent says. The election commission has said the final results will not be announced until early next month, due to an investigation into complaints of irregularities.

Washington Post: Sunni and secular political groups angrily claimed Tuesday that last week's Iraqi national election was rigged, demanded a new vote and threatened to leave a shambles the delicate plan to bring the country's wary factions together in a new government. Faced with preliminary vote counts that suggest a strong victory by the United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition of Shiite religious parties that dominates the outgoing government, political leaders of Iraq's Sunni Arab minority hinted that insurgent violence would be accelerated by the suspicions of fraud.

UPI: Iraq's elections were marked by widespread intimidation and coercion by paramilitary groups, experts said Tuesday. "This election appears to have suffered from very many problems. The reports have become overwhelming," Leslie Campbell, regional director of Middle East and North African programs at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, told a meeting at the Center for American Progress, a think tank headed by John Podesta, President Bill Clinton's former chief of staff.

AP reports: Preliminary results from most of Baghdad's ballot boxes showed the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance leading with 58 percent of the vote in Iraq's biggest electoral district, an election official said Monday. With results from 89 percent of Baghdad, the electoral commission said the alliance received 1,403,901 votes, followed by the Sunni Arab Iraqi Accordance party with 451,782 votes and former prime Minister Ayad Allawi's Iraqi National List with 327,174. The commission did not provide any more details. Baghdad is Iraq's biggest electoral district with 2,161 candidates running for 59 of the Iraq parliament's 275 seats.

The Intelligencer: Iraq Elections Show Situation Improving

KUNA: Kuwait Cabinet expresses satisfaction with Iraq elections progress

Philadelphia Inquirer: Iraq elections signal shift in Sunni attitude

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: The Iraq elections: Time to deliver

UPI: Allawi group says fraud in Iraq elections

Niall Ferguson of the L.A. Times: History, democracy and Iraq I SAW TWO OF MY former students last week; one I taught at Cambridge, the other at Oxford. One of them has spent the better part of the last three years on her majesty's service in southern Iraq. The other is based in Jerusalem, working to broker an enduring peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Basra and Gaza are certainly not the places I expected them to end up. It is not, however, the fact that they are Oxbridge products — or, indeed, the fact that they are both women — that gives me hope for the future of the Middle East. It is the fact that they are historians.

After all, the forces bedeviling the Middle East today are fundamentally the same ones that tore Europe apart in the last century. Europe a century ago was the continent through which the world's biggest geopolitical fault lines ran. Like the Middle East today, it had the allure of natural resources (coal and iron, not oil). Like the Middle East today, it had a rapidly growing population that was deeply divided along ethnic lines (though the majority were Christians, not Muslims). And like the Middle East today, it was where the tectonic plates of empire met.

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DEBKAfile reports (NOTE: not always a reliable source): DEBKAfile’s exclusive sources report he has come to deal with the formation of the Iraq government coalition in the light of surprises emerging in the preliminary counting of Iraq’s general election results. Our sources reveal early indications that the big winner is the Shiite Risaliya list headed by Ayatollah Taki Mudrassi, rival of Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Radical cleric Moqtada Sadr’s list in the United Iraq Alliance bloc has performed strongly. Former prime minister Iyad Allawi’s mixed Iraqi List has made solid gains of an estimated 30% of the Sunni Muslim vote and 20% among the Shiites. The Kurdish alliance appears to have lost ground but is still expected to hold the balance of power in the future National Assembly. Ahmed Chalabi’s party appears to have fared badly.

Economic Times (India): It could be a hung house in Iraq. Final results in Iraq’s parliamentary election may not be known for two weeks, but early indications show the Shiite tickets doing well in traditional Shiite strongholds, election officials said Friday. In Mosul, capital of the predominantly Sunni Arab province of Nineveh, indications were that the Sunni coalition came in first, said a representative for the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, Hameed Shabaky. He said the Shiite governing party apparently came in fourth behind the Sunni coalition, the Kurds and a bloc led by former PM Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite. Turnout in what was a mostly peaceful election was overwhelming. Election officials estimated up to 11m of the nation’s 15m registered voters took part in Thursday’s vote, which would put overall turnout at more than 70%. [...]

AP via Guardian (UK): A leading Sunni politician said Friday his party would be open to an alliance with secular Shiites and Kurds to form a coalition government to run the country once the results are in from this week's parliamentary elections. ``We will not accept the exclusion of any segment of the Iraqi people unless they themselves don't want to participate,'' said Adan al-Dulaimi, a former Islamic studies professor who heads a Sunni Arab bloc that is now expected to have power in parliament. U.S. officials view al-Dulaimi, who heads an alliance called the Iraqi Accordance Front, as a possible intermediary who could persuade some Sunni-led insurgent groups in restive Anbar province to join the political process after boycotting previous votes.

Financial Times: Strong Sunni turnout in Iraq election raises hopes for successful democracy.

SignOnSanDiego via AP: Iraqi authorities tallied millions of ballots Friday as complaints grew about the conduct of the parliamentary election, including some allegations of "violent interference" with voters. The election commission said none of the complaints involved fraud. Officials said it could take at least two weeks until final results are announced for the new, four-year parliament because all the complaints had to be investigated. Preliminary results might be available in less than a week, they said. [...]

Financial Times election wrap-up: Iraqi officials began counting ballots on Friday for the first post-invasion parliament and began investigating allegations of violations, including the intimidation of voters, in a process that may determine how much legitimacy Sunni Arabs accord the country’s nascent democracy. Iraq’s Independent Elections Commission said final results would not be ready for at least two weeks, giving the commission time to address complaints. However, officials have said that preliminary results from the 6,230 polling stations may be available in a week. An IECI commissioner said that between 10m and 11m voters had cast ballots, between 65 and 70 per cent of the eligible population. [...]

Tentative Iraqi election results show the Shi'ite religious coalition is leading the polls in Iraq's five southern provinces, while the Kurdish alliance looks set to triumph in the north. On Friday, electoral and party officials said strong results for the conservative Shi'ite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) were expected in southern Iraq. The UIA might face stiffer competition from secular former premier Ilyad Allawi in urban areas like Baghdad, whose list often scored second in Shiite regions. The UIA includes religious parties like the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (Sciri) and Iraqi prime minister Ibrahim Jaafari's Dawa party. [...]

News24 via SA: Counting begins after Iraq vote Votes were being counted on Friday after Iraq's legislative election saw a strong turnout with minimal violence. Electoral officials briefly extended Thursday's voting owing to the turnout, which preliminary estimates put at between 60 and 80%, surpassing an October referendum, with Sunni Arabs casting ballots in record numbers.

Daily Yomiuri (Japan) editorial: Iraq poll is a big step toward normal govt Iraq's general election, a major milestone on the road to permanent parliamentary democracy, ended Thursday without any major problems. Though the country still faces a host of challenges, the success of the election to choose a parliament means that Iraq has made another important step toward peace and stability. All the religious and ethnic groups in the country, including Sunni Arabs who boycotted the January election for the provisional Iraqi National Assembly, participated in the election. It is significant that every group in Iraq has now engaged in the political process for the first time. In particular, the participation of Sunnis in the process may help improve the country's security in the future because most of the militants in Iraq are believed to be Sunnis. Through a popular verdict, the first regular government to be created under the new Constitution will be able to claim a strong basis for legitimacy. [...]

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