The next prime minister will lead a government that presumably will be in power when the U.S. completes its scheduled troop withdrawal from Iraq next year. There has been fear among some in the West that a U.S. withdrawal would effectively leave Iraq as an Iranian puppet.
Al-Maliki, the U.S. partner in Iraq for the past four years, announced in a nationally televised news conference that he would not accept the results, which gave his bloc 89 seats to Allawi's 91 in Iraq's 325-seat parliament.
Gesturing angrily, he said he would challenge the vote count through what he described as legal process. By law, he would have until Monday to register his complaints with the election commission.
After the complaints are addressed by the election commission, the results may be revised and then finally submitted to the country's Supreme Court, which must ratify them. The entire process could take weeks.
Al-Maliki and his supporters in his State of Law coalition had previously called for a re-count, saying there had been instances of vote rigging and fraud. But election officials had refused, and international observers have said the election was fair and credible.
The top U.N. official in Iraq, Ad Melkert, called on all sides to accept the results. That sentiment was echoed by U.S. Ambassador Christopher R. Hill and Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. military official in Iraq, who praised what they described as a "historic electoral process," and said they support the finding of election observers who found no evidence of widespread or serious fraud.
Ayad Allawi has the pole position to try and form a coalition. While Maliki has been fine--proving himself in his Charge of the Knights operation in Basra to rout the Sadrists--it is wrong to pin out hopes on one leader. Voting and rule of law are our objectives.
So, while Iraq has shown they can hold elections, they always needed to pass the big test of peacefully transferring power from a losing incumbent to a winning challenger. Better to have that test now while we have nearly 100,000 troops in the country to remind everyone to play nice.
Maliki has at least indicated that his "rejection" of the results will take place through legal challenges. That's fine. As long as that is all he contemplates.
And for those convinced that we delivered Iraq to the Iranians, will they finally settle down and stop that nonsense?
