Dawlat al-Qanoon leads in Najaf after 98% of votes counted

BAGHDAD /Iraqi News Nouri al-Maliki’s Dawlat al-Qanoon (State of Law) bloc is leading in the holy Shiite city of Najaf after 98.15% of the Iraqi parliamentary election votes counted in the province, according to the Independent High Electoral Commission on Sunday. “Dawlat al-Qanoon garnered 171,923 votes, followed by the National Iraqi Alliance (NIA) with 147,077 votes and Iyad Allawi’s al-Iraqiya with 29,652 votes,” according to results published by the IHEC web site. Earlier, the IHEC chief, Faraj al-Haydari, set Friday evening as a date for announcing the final results of the 2010 legislative elections, the second ever in the war-torn Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. AmR (P)/SR 1