'Vote-rigging' clouds Iraq's elections

Mr al-Maliki and Mr Allawi were still neck and neck in the early vote counting following the March 7 election for 325 parliamentary seats, with the prime minister's State of Law coalition claiming victory in conservative Shia Muslim cities and the opposition Iraqiya party apparently winning a majority in Sunni Muslim provinces.

The Shi'ite Iraqi National Alliance was also leading in two of Iraq's 18 provinces, according to partial results from the country's Independent High Election Commission (IHEC).

But the ballot counting has been rocked by allegations of vote-rigging in the capital Baghdad.

Mr Allawi has already claimed that 55 Iraqiya candidates had been disqualified on the eve of the election as part of a contentious "de-Ba'athification process," where the authorities have refused to allow alleged members of former president Saddam Hussein's party to participate in politics.

But at the weekend Iraqiya candidates also charged that votes for their party had been discarded by the election commission.

"We found Iraqiya votes in rubbish bins - thrown out of the ballot boxes and neglected by the IHEC - and this is fraud," declared Baghdad Iraqiya candidate Adnan al-Janabi.

However IHEC board member Qassem al-Abodi denied that complaints had been made, insisting that the commission "will not rely on what is said in the media about these elections."