Iraq electoral commission: No fraud found in vote recount

May 14, 2010 An Iraqi electoral commission has said that no fraud was found during a partial recount of votes from the country's elections two months ago.

The recount was requested by Nouri al-Maliki, the current prime minister, after his party came second. Since the recount was done manually, it took 11 days to go through the 2.5 million votes cast in the Baghdad area.

"We finished the recount of 11,298 ballot boxes and no violations or fraud have been found," commented electoral commission spokesman Qassim al-Abboudi earlier today, noting that the Independent High Electroral Commission will make the full results of the recount publicly available on Monday.

al-Maliki had alleged fraud after the coalition his main political opponent,, took a two-seat lead in parliament. The prime minister wanted recounts for all five provinces in Iraq, although only one &mdash; for Baghdad and the surrounding vicinity &mdash; was accepted. The Baghdad province accounts for around a fifth of the 325 overall seats. The recount, supervised by observers with the European Union and the United Nations, was conducted in the capital's Green Zone.