BAGHDAD, Dec 20: Iraq’s opposition, including the largest Sunni political coalition, on Tuesday contested partial election results and threatened to demand a new ballot despite US calls for a government to be formed swiftly.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani appealed for a broad-based government representing the entire ethnic and political spectrum, a call echoed by US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad in his year-end address.

The National Concord Front, a coalition of three major Sunni powers that competed in parliamentary polls for the first time, condemned what it described as fraud and violations in the election.

Amid high tensions between Shias and Sunnis, the Sunni coalition cast doubt on preliminary results, released by the election commission, that favoured the largest Shia coalition.

“We reject these results announced by the commission,” Adnan Al Dulaimi, one of the leaders of the National Concord Front, told a news conference.

The conservative Shia United Iraqi Alliance list won 58 per cent of the vote in Baghdad while the National Concord Front came second with 18.6 per cent, while former prime minister Iyad Allawi’s list took 13.5 per cent according to partial results announced on Monday.

Hamid Majid Mussa, secretary-general of the communist party and part of Allawi’s list, called the commission’s release of preliminary results ‘irresponsible’.

“They are harming the political process at a time when we are trying to build a state of laws and institutions,” said Mussa.

Results announced on Tuesday, however, showed major gains for the Sunni coalition in the country’s three majority Sunni provinces of Al Anbar, Salaheddin and Nineveh.

The National Concord front took 73 per cent of the vote in Anbar, with half the ballots counted, but only a third of the vote in the other two provinces where almost 90 per cent of the vote was tabulated.

The leaders of the Sunni list specifically called on the electoral commission to reexamine and correct the results they had announced so far.

“The electoral commission can still rectify the situation, otherwise it will be entirely responsible for this fraud which will have serious repercussions on the security and economic situation,” said Tareq Al Hashimi of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a coalition member.

Khalilzad said in his year end address that Iraq could only work if there is ‘cross ethnic and cross-sectarian cooperation’.

He expressed hope that once full results were known, Iraqi leaders would put together ‘a broad-based national unity government, a cross-sectarian and cross-ethnic government’.

US President George W. Bush, for his part, urged Iraqis to form a new government as soon as possible and not squander the political gains made by the first legislative election to include major participation by all sectarian groups.

“We’re urging them, don’t delay. Move as quickly as you can,” said Bush.—AFP