BAGHDAD, Feb 12: Iraq’s dominant Shia alliance on Sunday narrowly voted for current premier Ibrahim Jaafari as its candidate for prime minister in the country’s first permanent post-Saddam Hussein government.

In a sign of divisions within the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), however, Mr Jaafari won 64 votes in the movement’s ballot to defeat Vice President Adel Abdel Mahdi by just a single vote following weeks of wrangling.

His appointment is to be formally sealed by a new three-member presidential council due to be selected by two-thirds of the 275-member parliament when it sits in the next two weeks.

Mr Jaafari’s 10-month term has been marked by a persistent insurgency, something he said he would continue to tackle in his next term.

“I ask all the other election lists to participate with us to build our new house,” Mr Jaafari said.

For his part, defeated challenger Abdel Mahdi indicated that the UIA, which won landmark parliamentary elections held in mid-December, had formed committees to negotiate with other lists.

SERIES OF BLASTS: As the vote was under way, a series of bomb blasts rocked Baghdad, killing five people, including a baby girl, and wounding about 20 people, security officials said.

A suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt blew himself up near a police checkpoint in southern Baghdad, killing two police commandos and a woman.

Another two people were killed, including an 18-month-old infant, in a roadside bombing in northern Baghdad, while two bombs went off near a restaurant in central Baghdad, injuring 12 people.

Two other people were killed in a drive-by shooting in Shula.

Two bombs detonated near police patrols in Kirkuk on Sunday, wounding seven policemen.

Police in the southern province of Babel reported finding three unidentified bodies, blindfolded and shot, in various parts of the province.

In Baghdad, police also found two bodies, blindfolded with hands bound and showing torture marks, in the south of the capital.—AFP