By Steven Lee Myers
BAGHDAD — Only hours after a recount of ballots from the Iraqelection began on Monday, leaders of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s coalition objected to the way it was being conducted and sought a court order for a more thorough review of what they called election irregularities.
The objection added to an already convoluted and protracted political struggle. It threatened to delay further the certification of the final results of the election, held nearly two months ago.
The head of Iraq’s election commission, Faraj al-Haidari, disputed the new claims, vowing to proceed with the recount unless ordered to stop. In a hotel ballroom in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone where the ballots were being recounted, he testily confronted one of Mr. Maliki’s allies, Hussain Shahristani, now the minister of oil, reflecting the rising tensions around the vote.
“So you held a press conference!” Mr. Haidari told him, as security guards encircled them to keep reporters at bay.
“The commission does not yield to any pressure,” he said at his own news conference later, suggesting its members were, in fact, facing just that, “nor is it affected by any pressure”.
It was not clear whether a special election court would order new recount procedures, or when. Even without the new challenges, a recount of ballots from the province that includes Baghdad was projected to last as long three weeks, delaying the formation of a new government that will be in power as the last American troops are required to withdraw next year.
“There is a palpable sense of frustration on the part of the Iraqi public and outsiders who want to see the Iraqi government put together,” the senior political adviser at the American Embassy, Gary A. Grappo, told reporters on Sunday ahead of the start of the recount, which he said would not significantly alter the outcome.
His remarks reflected growing American concerns that the political struggle was leading to a protracted period of governmental vacuum, with important issues left to drift. Asked if he meant American diplomats were frustrated as well, he added: “I think everyone is. I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t be two months after the election”.
Mr. Maliki filed a legal challenge seeking a recount after his coalition placed second when preliminary results were announced. His coalition, State of Law, won 89 seats in a new 325-member Parliament, two seats behind a secular and largely Sunni bloc led by a former prime minister, Ayad Allawi.
Neither won enough to form a new government and elect a new prime minister, but preliminary talks to form a broader coalition in the new Parliament have stalled amid the legal challenges and seemingly intractable disputes over who will lead the country for the next four years as prime minister.
The challenges to the preliminary results reflected jockeying for advantage — however slight — in those negotiations.
“In the big picture, you get the impression that State of Law is now more concerned with hanging on to power than with finding realistic alliance partners,” said Reidar Visser, achronicler of Iraqi politics at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.
The results are being contested on two fronts, even though American, United Nations and other foreign observers all declared the election fair and free of widespread irregularities.
In addition to Mr. Maliki’s recount demands, a special electoral court is considering legal challenges from a parliamentary commission to disqualify still more candidates on the grounds they were loyalists of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party.
Last week, the court barred 52 candidates, including one from Mr. Allawi’s bloc who had won a seat, throwing the initial outcome in doubt and infuriating Sunni leaders who say they are being unfairly singled out, disenfranchising their supporters. A decision on disqualifying additional candidates — 8 to 24 more, according to officials — is expected at any time.
Mr. Shahristani, the oil minister who ran and won on the prime minister’s slate, appeared at the opening of the recount to demand that the process be expanded to review not just the actual votes cast, but also to compare the total number of votes to lists of actual voters.
Mr. Maliki’s supporters have suggested that the reported results might have been tampered during the initial count or afterwards, though observers from all parties were present and reported no significant fraud at the time.
“We have eyewitnesses saying that ballot boxes were filled with false papers,” Mr. Shahristani said.
