Iraqi election results set for Friday, International team says vote `largely fair'

Iraq's electoral commission annulled results from 227 ballot boxes yesterday, upholding complaints of irregularities in the December 15 election.The Australian: Cancelled ballots 'won't change results of Iraq poll' [January 18, 2006]

The annulled ballots represent a mere fraction of the total vote and will have little or no effect on the results.

Final results are expected to be released Friday.

Sunni Arab and secular parties have already begun discussing joining a grand coalition government with the dominant Shia Islamists and the Kurdish bloc.

A four person team of international experts was brought in to review the election process and said the results will be published tommorow, but that the vote was largely fair.

Now comes the usual jockeying and coalition building common to parliamentary democracy. The Iraqis are learning fast! G-d speed to them, after all they've suffered.