BAGHDAD, Dec 30: Leaders of Iraq’s Sunni and secular communities gave a cautious welcome on Friday to a plan to bring foreign experts to Baghdad to review results of this month’s election, which they say was fraudulent.

They said they would cooperate with the experts and still hoped to join Shias and Kurds in a grand coalition government capable of healing Iraq’s sectarian wounds and providing its people with the basic services they so badly lack.

The closure of a major oil refinery in the northern town of Baiji due to fears of insurgents’ attacks heaped further misery on Iraqis, prompting longer-than-usual queues for fuel in the capital and fears that supplies would run out.

“If the refinery stays shut, the queues at fuel stations will get longer and I imagine I can see I’ll have to wait more than three hours for petrol,” said Sadiq Shamikh, 28, as he lined up to fill the tank of his taxi in Baghdad.

“Wasting time means losing money for me.”

Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi has taken over direct control of the powerful oil ministry against the will of the incumbent minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, officials confirmed.

A ministry spokesman allied to Uloum said the country was facing an impending oil supply crisis. “Production in the north, centre and south is about to suffocate,” he said.

It could be several months before a government emerges to tackle such problems, although the will to build one still exists despite days of complaints from Sunni and secular leaders that they were robbed in the Dec. 15 election. In a bid to placate their anger, the Iraqi Electoral Commission (IECI) has invited a panel of international experts to Baghdad to review the disputed results. The team comprises two Arab League representatives, a Canadian politician and a European academic.

Although there seems little they can do to dramatically change the outcome of the vote, their presence could help bring disgruntled Sunnis on board.

“This is intended to please some political factions who have asked for this,” IECI chief Hussein Hindawi said. “Their evaluation will probably solve this political crisis.”

Other electoral officials said the initiative was a face-saving exercise that would allow some Sunnis and secularists to back down from their demands for a rerun of the vote without alienating their own supporters.

Responding to the initiative, the Iraqi Islamic Party, part of the main Sunni bloc, gave a cautious welcome.

“The arrival of this committee shows the international community has responded to our demands,” said party official Iyad al-Samarraie. “(But) if we see it is willing only to check technical irregularities, we’ll have to think about what to do.”

Partial but near-complete ballot tallies show the Shia Islamist coalition which forms the backbone of the current government has done well, and should have nearly half the seats in the new parliament.

Sunnis make up about 20 per cent of Iraq’s 26 million population and Shias around 60 per cent. Kurds, who are predominantly Sunni, make up about 15 to 20 per cent and the remainder is Christian or from other smaller sects.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of one of the two main parties within the coalition, addressed an audience in Kurdistan and outlined his vision of a federal Iraq in which the Shias, long oppressed under military dictator Saddam Hussein, have significant autonomy.

“Just as federalism was the right choice in the Kurdish areas of Iraq, so it is in the middle, in the south, in Baghdad and all other Iraqi cities,” Hakim said.

Those federal issues, enshrined in a constitution opposed by Sunnis, will top the agenda for Sunnis hoping to amend the charter once the new parliament convenes.—Reuters