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Al-Hakim coalition leads; UN vows truth in Iraq oil program scandal

By: Mohamed Ali

UNITED NATIONS/BAGHDAD: As a damning investigation concluded that the head of the UN oil-for-food program in Iraq obtained allocations of oil and unusual payments in a scandal which has badly tainted the image of the United Nations, a new, partial tally of votes Friday from Iraq's landmark elections showed Al-Hakim coalition rolling up a strong commanding lead over other tickets.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan "shocked" by the revelations in the investigation immediately ordered disciplinary action against the official, Benon Sevan, who has denied wrongdoing. Annan vowed to clear the name of the United Nations.

The report by an independent panel, headed by former US Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker, stopped short of saying Sevan, a Cypriot, had taken bribes.

It said, however, that Sevan had repeatedly asked for allocations of oil from the regime of Saddam on behalf of a small trading company registered in Panama that then re-sold the oil.

Iraq said it wanted its money back from the scandal-tainted oil-for-food program.

"Huge sums of money which should have served the needs of the Iraqi people who were suffering at that time -- a lot of these resources were squandered and misspent," said Iraq's UN ambassador, Samir Sumaidaie.

Meanwhile, the United Iraqi Alliance, which has the endorsement of Marjaiyah, won more than two-thirds of the 3.3 million votes counted so far, the election commission said.

It said that with 1.6 million votes counted, the alliance had 72.8 percent.

A list headed by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi came in second, with about 18.4 percent in the partial count.

The new election figures represented partial returns from 10 of Iraq's 18 provinces, said Hamdiyah Al-Husseini, an election commission official.

The Alliance also won the most out of the 265,000 votes cast by Iraqis abroad, with 36 percent, compared to 29 percent for the main Kurdish coalition and nine percent for Allawi, according to a complete count released by the International Organization for Migration, which organized the vote in 14 countries.

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