Iraq election commission rejects calls for vote recount

Iraq's election commission has rejected calls from the president and prime minister for a recount of votes cast in the general election on 7 March.

An election official said a recount of all votes would be impossible and was unnecessary because of checks on fraud.

Earlier, President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri Maliki backed calls for a manual recount of votes.

Partial results indicate a close race between Mr Maliki and former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

But the long delay in announcing the full results has led to growing allegations of fraud and demands for a recount.

"It can't be done, it can't, we can't start all over again and count the votes manually," Saad el-Rawi of the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) told BBC Arabic.

"We don't say it's impossible," he added, "but it will take a lot of time.

"We have more than 50,000 polling stations and 350,000 election officials. Do they want us to resend all the ballot boxes back to the stations and call back all the officials?"

Other IHEC officials have said vote recounts from particular districts could be requested if candidates thought errors had been made.


Full article http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8578750.stm