Secularist Iyad Allawi edged ahead of Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Saturday in a neck-and-neck election race that has laid bare the ethnic and sectarian divisions threatening Iraq's fragile stability.
The new results from Iraq's electoral commission, with about 93% of an early vote count complete, gave a lead of some 8,000 votes to Allawi, a Shiite former prime minister with wide support among minority Sunnis who fear consolidation of the dominance of Shiite religious parties in Iraq since 2003. (Reuters)
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