国际英语新闻：Former PM slightly leads in 95% of partial results in Iraq's voting

BAGHDAD, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi on Sunday continued slightly leading over the incumbent Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in 95 percent of the country's partial results of parliamentary elections.

Allawi's Iraqia bloc led with 11,346 votes over Maliki's State of Law coalition in the 95 percent of the nationwide count of ballots cast announced Sunday out of about 12 million votes of March 7 polls, the Iraqi Independent High Electoral Commission ( IHEC) said.

Allawi garnered 2,631,388 votes while Mailiki's coalition got 2, 620,042, the IHEC showed on its website.

Earlier in the day, the IHEC said that the full preliminary results would be announced next Friday at Baghdad's al-Rasheed Hotel in the Green Zone.

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.