Detroit Free Press: Chalabi wants to be Iraq's new prime minister.

Ten days after the Iraqi elections, the announcement of the final results has been delayed further by the recount of votes in about 300 ballot boxes, the electoral commission says. (Al Jazeera)

There were irregularities in Iraq’s general election, which would result in some elements of Iraqi society would be under represented in the new parliament, a spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Wednesday. (MSNBC)

Iraqi Kurds hope their apparent strong showing in the Jan. 30 national elections will strengthen their case for self-rule and enable them to reverse what they consider a land grab by Saddam Hussein that cut into their northern stronghold.

Stephen Chapman: After the Iraqi Election, Self-Congratulation Abounds. (Real Clear Politics)

Editorial: $152 billion steep price for Iraq elections. (Tomah Journal)

Rachelle Marshall: Elections Alone Can’t Bring Peace to Occupied Palestine and Iraq. (wrmea.com)

Abraham Miller: Lessons of the Iraq Elections. Watching the media coverage of the recent election in Iraq has been nothing short of watching CNBC during the height of the bull market. Seldom have long-term consequences been so smothered in the embrace of short-term exuberance. I know I am raining on the big parade, and even liberal media pundit Dan Rather seems to have added his voice to the cheering multitudes. But to evaluate Iraq’s political future from the perspective of the election is like loading up on tech stocks at the height of the bull market. (Chron Watch)

Partial results released on Thursday by the Iraqi electoral commission consistently placed the Shia Islamist-led United Iraqi Alliance first, with more than two thirds of the 1.6m votes so far counted and confirmed from the Baghdad and five southern majority-Shia provinces. The Iraqi List of interim prime minister Iyad Allawi, meanwhile, came second across the board, but nowhere except in Baghdad province did the prime minister's list gain more than one third of the number of votes that went to the Alliance. (Financial Times)

Following the low turnout of Sunni Arab voters in Iraq's national elections Sunday, former Iraqi Governing Council member, Adnan Pachachi, says he has initiated conciliatory talks with Sunni Arab groups that did not take part in the balloting. The secular Sunni Arab elder statesman worries that the credibility of the elected national assembly and the constitution it drafts may be greatly diminished without Sunni-Arab participation. Adnan Pachachi, who was only one of a handful of Sunni-Arab candidates in Sunday's race, has spent the past several days reaching out to leaders of Sunni-led opposition groups, who boycotted national elections. (Voice of America)

US officials praised the election turnout in Iraq's restive third city of Mosul, but political parties in its ethnically-divided province protested about the lack of polling centres and ballot papers. (AFP)

Electoral officials in the southern city of Karbala have discovered a case of election fraud in which voter education materials were tampered with to add a plug for the major Shia-led coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance. (Institute for War & Peace Reporting)

Boston Globe: For Shi'ite Najaf, a new direction.

The United States "will resolutely stand beside" the Iraqi people in their struggle to achieve democracy, stability and prosperity following the January 30 elections, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and Iraq Coordinator Ronald Schlicher says. "As we enter this post-election period, our reconstruction efforts will be focused on assisting the Iraqi Transitional Government to improve security, create jobs, develop economic policy and regulatory frameworks, and expand private enterprise," Schlicher said in a prepared statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee February 3. (US Dept. of State)

AP: Partial Results of Iraqi Election.

Kurdish self-rule is inevitable if not imminent, according to Kurdistan Democratic Party chief Masud Barzani. (Al Jazeera) Also, from KurdishMedia.com: Three tiresome elections and a referendum.

Polls big blow to rebels - Iraqi PM (Cape Argus)

Shiites, Kurds acquire power.The groups' strong election results aid their bid to select a new prime minister. (Newsday via Detroit News)

Purple marks support for Iraqi elections (AP via Houston Chronicle)

Sunni dilemma over dealings with new government. After uneven turnouts around the country in Sunday's elections, representatives of Iraq's Sunni Arab minority are divided as to how they will deal with the resulting government, in which their community looks likely to be substantially under-represented. (Financial Times)

Editorial: Find inspiration in Iraqi election. The ballots are still being counted in Baghdad, and officials say it still could be another week before the results of Sunday's elections in Iraq are known. One thing is clear, however: the vote appears to have been a major success. (The Daily News [Jacksonville, NC, USA])

Michel Chossudovsky: Iraqi Elections: Media Disinformation on Voter Turnout? (Global Research via Scoop [NZ])

Arthur Chrenkoff's blog: The new meme hits the Iraq debate

Blog "I Should Have Stayed Home" reprints two anti-election flyers. (found via Chester)

The Economist: Can the voters build on success? In four articles on Iraq's elections, we analyse the elections' achievement—and see why a new government will still struggle to impose itself, at home and abroad.

Censoring the Coverage of the Iraqi Elections: "Limited to Filming at Only Five Polling Stations" (uruknet.info)

Ivan Eland: After U.S. and Ukraine, Fake Elections Come to Iraq. Are Iraqi Elections a Panacea? (The Progress Report)

Morocco Times: Iraqi elections and the new challenges ahead

Muslim Scholars Commission question legitimacy of Iraqi elections. (Arabic News)

Despite being proclaimed a great success, Iraq’s landmark elections on Sunday have sparked significant complaints from the Christian communities both in Iraq and in the United States. (The Christian Post)

The head of the world's largest organization of Islamic countries says Sunday's election in Iraq was "not complete," because it did not fully involve that nation's Sunni-Muslim minority. But he had positive words for the election in general. (Voice of America)

Dr. Minhaj Qidwai: Iraq Elections: Democracy or hypocrisy. "The Iraqis will realize later the game plan behind these elections. Who are these elections really for? The Iraqi people or Bush's PR machine?.." (The Palestine Chronicle)

Robert Robb: Bush partly vindicated by Iraq vote. (Arizona Republic)

Iraqi officials Thursday released the first partial returns from national elections, showing a commanding lead by candidates backed by the Shiite Muslim clergy. (AP)

Christopher Allbritton of blog Back to Iraq 3.0: End of the beginning.

Iraq's interim president said Tuesday that tens of thousands of people may have been unable to vote in the country's historic weekend election because some polling places - including those in Sunni Arab areas - ran out of ballots. (AP)

‘The Cities Were Not Bathed in Blood’ It was hardly a perfect election. But against all odds, Election Day brought unexpected hope and gaiety to the streets of Baghdad. (Newsweek)

Thomas Sowell: The defeatists have been defeated. Remember all the political outcries that the Iraqi elections should be postponed because it would be impossible to hold elections with terrorism rampant throughout the country? (TownHall.com)

James Carroll: A train wreck of an election. (Boston Globe via International Herald Tribune)

Middle Eastern governments say they hope to establish good relations with whatever leadership emerges from Iraq's landmark election but expressed concern over the low Sunni Muslim turnout and the rise in Shiite Muslim influence. (AP via Boston Herald)

Sen. Hillary Clinton praises Iraq elections. (Newsmax)

George Will: Democracy in Iraq such a nice idea. (Times Union)

Wall Street Journal: The New Iraq. So much for the argument that Arabs don't want democracy.

Philadelphia Inquirer: Editorial | Iraq's huge step forward.

Howard Kurtz: Iraq's moment of truth. (Washington Post)

Ralph Kinney Bennett: Why 'Bloody Sunday' Didn't Happen. As the day of the historic Iraqi elections came to a close the incapability of the vitiated Baathist/Islamofascist forces to carry out their bloody, histrionic threats became apparent. They were not able to exact casualties above the normal accident rate in a country of 27 million people. [...] (Tech Central Station)

Denver Post: Iraqi elections give a breath of fresh air.

Preliminary results of Iraqi elections to be released the coming hours (Al Jazeera) Also here is an AP version of the story.

Turns out, hope won Iraq elections. (The Times of India)

Iraq's election was a step in the right direction for peace and stability in the Middle East but it was only a first step, the head of the Arab League said Monday. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

Chirac: Iraqi elections "important stage" in political reconstruction. (XINHUA online)

UN Security Council hails Iraqi elections. (XINHUA online)

Europe praises Iraqi elections. Even opponents of U.S.-led war find good things to say about balloting. (Indianapolis Star)

Afghanistan welcomes Iraqi elections. (XINHUA online)

Kerim Balci: Iraqi Elections and Islam (Zaman Daily Newspaper)

Rashed Rahman: VIEW: Elections under occupation. (Daily Times [Pakistan])

Editorial: 'In a war zone, they chose to vote'. The unexpectedly high turnout is welcomed, but concerns for the future remain. (Gulf News via The Guardian[UK])

After historic Iraq vote, Saudis try own elections. (SignOnSanDiego.com)

Even European critics of Iraq war praise Iraqis and Bush for election. (AP via Boston Globe)

Arab Reaction to Iraqi Elections Mixed. (Washington Post) And from the Daily Star in Lebanon: Iraqi elections spark Arab soul-searching.

Upbeat about election, Iran hopes Iraq occupation ends soon. (Tehran Times)

Jordan's king optimistic after Iraq election. Abdullah calls for Sunni community to be included in the political process. (The Daily Star [Lebanon])

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Monday welcomed Sunday's elections in Iraq and vowed continued Japanese support for Iraqis' nation building. (Japan Today)

Leading clerics here in the holiest city of Shiite Islam [Najaf] today expressed strong approval of the conduct of the country's first multiparty elections in decades, despite the fact that Iraqi electoral officials have yet to announce the results. (New York Times)

Iraqi TV offers nonstop coverage of elections. (Washington Times)

Time Magazine: Making sense of Iraq's vote.

Christian Science Monitor: How election reverberates beyond Iraq. Both Iraqi unity and global engagement may get a boost.

Eric Margolis: Iraq's predetermined elections. There was nothing at all surprising about yesterday’s election in Iraq. The vote, designed to justify the US-British invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation, had entirely predictable results. (EricMargolis.com)

Washington Post: Q&A: What's next for Iraq's Democracy?

Aaron Goldstein: The Swing Vote In Iraq. (American Daily)

Profound implications of Iraq elections for Middle East. (New Kerala [India])

Iraq's first multi-party elections for over 50 years dominate Monday's papers. (BBC)

Voters victorious in Iraq's elections. (San Jose Mercury News)

Iraq elections: Purple fingers in Sadr City. (International Herald Tribune)

The leader of a team of international election experts watching the Iraqi poll said the elections generally met international norms, but some unspecified legal areas need improvement. (AP via Boston Globe)

Russia expressed its respect for the results of Iraq’s election in a statement made by the Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday. However, the statement said that it was important for the Iraqi people to acknowledge and accept the poll’s results. (MosNews.com [Russia]) However, Gorbachev Calls Iraqi Elections “Fake”. (MosNews.com [Russia])

French FM describes Iraqi elections as "first important step". (XINHUA online [China])

Iraqi parties declare elections great success. (Financial Times)

The terrorists disagree: Al-Zarqawi's group slams Iraqi elections. (Kansas City Star)

Latest from AP:

• Iraqi Vote May Not Resolve Sunni Dilemma
• Allawi Calls for Unity After Iraqi Vote
• Iraq Finishes First-Phase Ballot Count
• Iraqi Election May Affect Middle East

Interim Prime Minister Allawi calls for a national dialogue "to ensure all Iraqis have a voice in the new government."

(Reuters)