The electoral commission had promised to provide initial results by the evening, but it later said it had not yet counted the 30 percent of the votes it needed to announce the preliminary findings.

Iraq's complex range of political blocs would now have to wait until Wednesday at the earliest for the first official indication of how they fared in the second general election since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite who helped ease the country's deadly sectarian strife, emerged Monday as the front-runner, according to estimates AFP obtained from officials across the country.

But he could yet face a tough battle to cling to power after the vote on Sunday that saw millions defy bomb, mortar and rocket attacks which killed 38 people to cast their ballots.

Estimates of early trends in the Baghdad region, which with its 70 parliamentary seats could swing the result of the vote, were not yet available.

But officials said Monday that Maliki's political bloc was leading the count in nine of Iraq's 18 provinces.

His State of Law Alliance was ahead in Shiite regions, while Iyad Allawi, a former premier who heads the secular Iraqiya list, led in Sunni areas, according to estimates AFP obtained from officials across the country.

But Iraqiya spokesman Maysun Damaluji said her list was making a very strong showing too.

"We are in the lead in at least four provinces," she said.

The Kurdistan autonomous region in the north looked set for a minor upheaval in its political landscape.

The upstart opposition party Goran (Change) took several parliamentary seats in a region dominated for decades by the two main Kurdish parties, the PKK and KDP, according to estimates by local officials.

The complete results were expected to be announced on March 18 and the final official results -- after any appeals are taken into account -- will come at the end of the month.

"We have not reached the bar of 30 percent of votes counted, and there will not be an announcement today," said Hamdiyah al-Husseini, an official at Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission, referring to initial results from the election. She did not specify when such an announcement would be made.

Months of horse-trading are then likely before a new government is formed.

Early indications were positive for Maliki, however. A source close to him said it now looked as if his list would secure 100 seats in the 325-seat parliament.

Maliki was appointed premier in 2006 as a compromise candidate, and his administration, with the essential help of the US military, sharply reduced the Sunni-Shiite sectarian strife that killed tens of thousands of Iraqis.

He played down his party's Shiite religious roots in campaigning for this election and sought to portray himself as the leader who restored security to Iraq, a claim dented by a series of bombings in recent weeks.

Maliki's main challenger, according to the initial estimates, is Allawi, whose Iraqiya list is a mostly Shiite slate that campaigned on a nationalist and non-sectarian ticket.

The other leading list is the Iraq National Alliance, dominated by two Shiite religious parties -- the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council and the movement of radical leader Moqtada al-Sadr, who led two uprisings against US troops.

Sunday saw Sunni Arabs vote in large numbers, in stark contrast to their 2005 boycott in protest at the rise to power of the long-oppressed Shiite majority.

Overall voter turnout on Sunday was officially given at 62.4 percent.

US President Barack Obama, who has promised to withdraw all American troops from Iraq by the end of next year, paid tribute to "the courage and resilience of the Iraqi people who once again defied threats to advance their democracy."

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