The tight race promises weeks or months of tough and potentially divisive negotiations to form a new government as Iraq tries to consolidate security gains made over the past two years and rebuild an economy shattered by war and sanctions.
The Independent High Electoral Commission was scheduled to release final preliminary results 19 days after the March 7 parliamentary vote Iraqis hoped would help stabilise their country after years of bloody sectarian conflict as US troops prepare to withdraw.
"There is no big difference between the two main leading lists," IHEC chief Faraj Al-Haidari told Reuters by telephone on Thursday. "The difference will be one or two seats, not more." A partial vote count released on Sunday put Iraqiya, a cross-sectarian coalition headed by secularist former prime minister Allawi about 11,000 votes in front of Maliki's State of Law bloc with 95 percent of nearly 12 million ballots tallied.
Allawi's strong support among minority Sunnis has exacerbated concerns that any attempt by majority Shiite coalitions to push him aside could reignite sectarian tensions.
Analysts have said they expect the top two coalitions to win around 90 seats each in the 325-member parliament. Seats will be allocated on the basis of a coalition's strength in each of Iraq's 18 provinces, not on the national popular vote.
Maliki's State of Law is already in merger talks with the third-place group, the Iraqi National Alliance, according to officials for the two mainly Shiite coalitions. INA is expected to win 65-70 seats, and the combination of the two could be close to the 163 seats needed to form a government.
Despite mortar, rocket and bomb attacks that killed 39 people on election day, a Defense Ministry spokesman said no special security measures had been enacted for the release of the results.
"Iraqi security forces are fully prepared for anything," the spokesman, Mohammed Al-Askari, said. "Our forces are in normal security measures." On Thursday a roadside bomb killed a leader of a Sunni government-backed militia group in the Al-Ray district of southwestern Baghdad, and in a separate attack gunmen stormed a house in the capital's Diyala bridge area and killed a woman and her daughter.
