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Cleric al-Sadr leads in early vote results

Published:Sunday | May 13, 2018 | 12:00 AM
Bram Janssen
Displaced men from Mosul wait in a queue before casting their ballot in the parliamentary elections at a polling site in a camp for displaced people in Baharka, Iraq, Saturday, May 12. Polls opened across Iraq on Saturday in the first national election since the declaration of victory over the Islamic State group.

BAGHDAD (AP):

Iraq's electoral commission says influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's alliance is the early front-runner in national elections, with official results in from just over half of the country's provinces.

The announcement Sunday night comes a day after polls closed across Iraq. The results are from 10 of the country's 19 provinces, including Baghdad and Basra.

An alliance of candidates with close ties to Iraq's powerful Shiite paramilitary groups are in a close second while Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has performed poorly across majority Shiite provinces that should have been his base of support.

The election was marked by record low turnout. It was the first since Iraq declared victory over the Islamic State group and the fourth since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.