Iyad Allawi has said he believes the elections have not been fair, and Nouri Maliki believes he has a strong lead

Nouri Maliki has the incumbent’s advantage, with the full weight of the state media and the and the government machinery at his disposal.

So it would have been surprising if he was not well ahead in his bid for a second term, after these early results.

But the job is not yet in his grip.

Boosted by his early lead in key provinces like Baghdad and Basra, he has started courting potential allies to form a new coalition government.

He has plenty of enemies though, and some parties will be keen to unseat him.

So negotiations are likely to take months, just as they did after the last parliamentary elections in December 2005.

That period of limbo saw Iraq plunge into full-blown sectarian war.

With Mr Maliki’s main opponent Iyad Allawi alleging widespread fraud, there are fears violence could surge again ­- especially if the many Sunnis who voted for Mr Allawi’s bloc feel disenfranchised.

‘Strongman’ strategy

These complaints still have to be investigated and complete results published. So the picture could still change.

Yet Mr Maliki has come a long way for someone who was just a lowly party spokesman when he was chosen as a compromise prime minister back in 2006.

Many thought he would not survive a full term.

There have been fewer complaints about the election than before

Even six months ago Mr Maliki looked in serious trouble, after a new wave of bombings in Baghdad punctured his claims to be restoring security.

But his “strongman” strategy of campaigning on a nationalist, law-and-order platform and ditching his former allies in the Shia religious parties appears to have been vindicated.

Their appeal looks to be on the wane.

They dominated the 2005 elections, but this time only came out on top in three southern provinces.

The Iranian-backed Islamic Supreme Council seems to have fared particularly badly.

Support for cleric Moqtadr Sadr – the other key player in the Shia Iraqi National Alliance – has held up better.

However, the other strongman in the race, Mr Maliki’s main rival, former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, believes he did better than the preliminary results show.

He says the elections were not fair.

Evidence his supporters have presented includes ballot papers marked for his Iraqqiya list but allegedly found discarded outside polling stations.

They say many of their supporters couldn’t find their names on electoral lists, preventing them from voting, and that workers at the Baghdad election centre tampered with the count.

The Times newspaper has uncovered reports of the Iraqi security forces allegedly interfering with voting, in some cases instructing people who to vote for.

There have been at least 2,000 complaints so far.

But Iraq’s electoral authorities say this is far fewer than they received for last year’s nationwide provincial elections.

Losing?

Diplomats and other election observers concede there have been violations, but question whether there have been enough to affect the overall result.

SEATS AT STAKE IN PROVINCES Baghdad 70 Nineveh 34 Basra 24 Dhiqar 18 Sulaimaniya 17 Babil 16 Irbil 15 Anbar 14 Diyala 13 Kirkuk 13 Najaf 12 Salahuddin 12 Dahuk 11 Qadisiya 11 Wasit 11 Karbala 10 Misan 10 Muthanna 7 Sources: Independent High Electoral Commission of Iraq

“So far, we are not seeing any systematic effort to rig the vote,” says one.

Some believe Mr Allawi’s camp has been highlighting irregularities for its own ends, because it appears to be losing.

But after the surprise disqualification of many of their candidates just before the election, they are genuinely suspicious, says one seasoned Western official.

“I don’t think they are making it up for political reasons,” adding: “This is still a society that lacks trust.”

The slow and sometimes chaotic way in which the election commission got the first set of results out has not helped the atmosphere.

Six election workers at the main counting centre were fired last week.

They were fired for incompetence, according to the commission, but Mr Allawi’s camp say they were fired for altering his vote count.

Some take the view that these rows are a sign of Iraqi democracy maturing.

But two key tests of the process remain.

The first is how complaints are being handled by the election commission.

The second – and most important – is how will talks on forming the government progress and whether the Sunnis feel their interests are properly represented.

In contrast to 2005, they voted in large numbers this time round and expect their voice to be heard. And while violence still remains at far lower levels than three years ago, insurgent attacks still happen.

The Americans are watching closely, knowing that things could still unravel with so many months of tortuous negotiations ahead.

But at the moment, they are sticking to plans to reduce their forces to 50,000 by the end of August.

The relatively high turnout – lower than for the 2005 election but still higher than most Western democracies – has also been seen as a positive sign.

It wasn’t just the threat of violence that might deter Iraqis from returning to the polling stations, many thought, but the widespread disillusionment with the performance of their new politicians over the past few years.

They still have a lot to prove, but Iraqi voters seem to have decided to give them another chance.