国际英语新闻：Former Iraqi PM pulls ahead again in partial voting count

BAGHDAD, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi again made a slender lead over the incumbent Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for the second time in 92 percent of the country's partial results of parliamentary elections.

Allawi's Iraqia bloc pulled ahead with 7,928 votes over Maliki' s State of Law coalition in the 92 percent of the nationwide count of ballots cast announced Saturday out of about 12 million votes of March 7 polls, the Iraqi Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) said Saturday.

Allawi garnered 2,543,632 votes while Maliki's coalition got 2, 535,704, the IHEC showed on its website.

Maliki and Allawi appeared the main rivals on the partial results and both are keeping their eyes watching the remaining count of about 8 percent of the elections votes that may either widen Allawi's margin or reverse the balance.

With the 92 percent of the votes count of Iraq's 18 provinces, Maliki appeared winning in six Shiite southern provinces and Baghdad, the largest constituency with 70 seats, but he failed to lead in three other Shiite southern provinces which was won by his rival Shiite Iraqi National Alliance (INA).

Allawi, on the other hand, made a strong appearance in four of Iraq's Sunni province and pulled ahead in the fifth, Kirkuk, where he was close to the rival Kurdish bloc which prevailed in the three Kurdish provinces in the semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq.

On March 7, some 62.4 percent of more than 18 million eligible voters turned out in some 8,920 polling centers across the country to vote for the 325-seat Iraqi Council of Representatives out of some 6,300 candidates.