BAGHDAD, Dec 15: A straw poll conducted after voting closed in Iraq’s election on Thursday showed the dominant Shia Islamist bloc retained a strong following, but was being challenged by former prime minister Iyad Allawi’s secular list.

More than 500 interviews with voters across Iraq indicated strong support in Shia areas for the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the senior partner in a ruling coalition with the Kurds.

The UIA says it has won 57 per cent of the national vote for Iraq’s first full-term parliament since Saddam Hussein fell.

But Mr Allawi appeared to have made up ground from his 14 Per cent showing in January’s poll for an interim assembly.

The Reuters poll suggests Mr Allawi could be a force in mixed areas like the capital Baghdad, which has 59 of the 230 regional seats available in the 275-seat parliament.

Voters interviewed as they left a polling station in a mainly Shia area of Baghdad showed 48 per cent voted for the UIA, with Mr Allawi’s list scoring 38 percent. A high voter turnout was reported in the mainly Sunni province of Anbar—Reuters