Iraqi ballot counting reaches 1.6 million

The officials said that they still continued the counting the ballots coming from the regions and it was unknown when the counting will end.

Officials said they counted 1,6 million ballots so far which represents 10% of the total ballots and stated that, Abdelaziz Al-Hakeem, leader of the United Iraqi Alliance backed by Shiite religious leader Ayatollah Ali Sistani gained 1 million votes and the current Prime Minister Iyad Allawi 360,000. Officials emphasised that these were not the absolute indication of the results.

Questioned on allegations of irregularities and fraud, the officials said that they investigated them but many of these allegations were exaggerated, pointing out that they were forced to limit the capacity of the polling stations and could not send ballots to some places due to security.

Election officials also said that a delegation was sent to Mosul to investigate the allegations of vote rigging there.