February 9, 2005
Iraqi officials said on Wednesday that the final results of the January 30 national elections will be delayed because the electoral commission must recount votes from almost 300 ballot boxes. The original deadline for the final results from Iraq's national elections was Thursday, but Farid Ayar, spokesman for Iraq's Electoral Commission, said that the announcement of the results will be delayed due to the need for a recount.
"We don't know when this will finish," Ayar said. "This will lead to a little postponement in announcing the results," he added. The electoral commission said that rebels tampered a number of ballot boxes during the elections, mainly in the northern city of Mosul. But Ayar didn't say where the 300 boxes come from.
Iraqi people voted for a 275-member National Assembly, 18 provincial councils and a regional parliament for the Kurdish self-governing region in the north. The preliminary results of the election announced so far show that a Shiite coalition, led by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is in the lead, as expected. A coalition of Kurdish parties is second and a bloc led by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi comes third.
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