al-Sadr on his way to election victory in Iraq

baghdad - The party of the influential Shiite clergyman Moqtada al-Sadr is almost certainly on his way to victory in the parliamentary elections of Iraq. The election committee said Monday, after 91 percent of the votes had been counted in sixteen of the eighteen Iraqi provinces.

The committee had announced the preliminary results of ten provinces on Sunday and added six more on Monday. We are still waiting for the results of the Kurdish province of Dohuk and the ethnically mixed oil region Kirkuk.

On Sunday, the alliance of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi was still in charge. According to the preliminary results, al-Sadr has now overtaken him.

The Iraqis went to the polling stations on Saturday to choose 329 MPs. There are approximately 7,000 candidates for this.