Monitors start reviewing Iraq vote results

"An international delegation started to look into complaints and objections," Adel Lamy, a member of Iraq's electoral commission, told AFP.

The international assessors were invited by the commission to look into their work.

"Two of the team's five members are already at work," Lamy said.

The assessors are from the International Mission for Iraqi Elections, an independent body set up in December 2004 which helped monitor general elections held in Iraq in January and a constitutional referendum in October.

Lamy said the team would check ballot samples and tally votes.

Members of the team "will also meet with representatives from political parties which have raised objections to the results and look into their complaints," Lamy said.

The Sunni-based alliance, along with a number of small secular parties, including the National List of former prime minister Iyad Allawi, have alleged widespread fraud in the December 15 ballot and have threatened to boycott the new four-year term parliament.

Initial results, issued by the electoral commission, suggest that Shia-based religious parties and their Kurdish allies will be returned to power.

Final election results are not expected until the international monitoring team has finished its work.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan have praised Iraqi authorities for inviting the monitors, hoping they will help Sunni parties accept the results of the election which both the United States and UN observers earlier declared fair.

The electoral commission said it had received some 1,500 complaints, including more than 20 that might affect the results of some constituencies. But it suggested that cancelling tainted votes would not change the overall election result.

"In the next few days we will cancel results in some polling stations that have seen vote rigging in some governorates," commission member Abdel Hussein al-Hendawi said recently.

"I welcome the invitation of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq to international monitors and experts to observe and review the December 15 elections, including the complaints settlement process," Rice said in a statement.

"The United States strongly supports the election review process," she said.

"It is important that the Iraqi people have confidence in the election results and that the voting process, including the process for vote counting, is free and fair," US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said for his part.