Sunnis and Secular Shiites Charge Election Fraud

The charges of widespread election fraud by Sunnis and secular Shiites in Iraq sound just like home sweet home -- except for the striking lack of hundreds of thousands of enraged Ohioans and Floridians marching through Washington, D.C.

Publius Pundit has a lengthy and very well-detailed piece about the election results, with numerous examples of specific complaints.

Reuters AlertNet reports that the losing Iraqi political parties have formed a coalition to protest the election results.

Iraq's Sunni Arab and secular parties threatened on Wednesday to boycott the new parliament after alleging massive fraud in last week's election, ramping up pressure on the triumphant Shi'ite Islamists to share power.
[...]
Representatives of secular Shi'ite former prime minister Iyad Allawi and two major Sunni Arab groups, the Islamist-led Iraqi Accordance Front and the secular Iraqi Unified Front, along with other groupings, met on Wednesday to coordinate.

"We all agreed to contest and reject the results of the election," said Allawi aide Thaer al-Naqib. "We want the Electoral Commission dissolved and the election rerun."

"We will take to the streets if necessary," he told Reuters. "We might even not take up our seats in the new parliament and so any new government would be illegitimate."

Unified Front leader Saleh al-Mutlak said they would take their complaints not only to the Electoral Commission but also the Arab League, European Union and United Nations.