A day after emerging in pole position in Baghdad, Maliki's State of Law Alliance held strong leads in two of the three biggest provinces and was ahead in seven of Iraq's 18 provinces, although the figures were far from complete.

The results from the second parliamentary election since Saddam Hussein's ouster in 2003 come less than six months ahead of a US downsizing which will see all American combat troops leave the country by the end of August.

Maliki, a Shiite who sought to portray himself as the leader who restored Iraq's security, was comfortably ahead in the oil-rich southern province of Basra, the third largest, and Karbala, also in the south.

Both provinces are mostly Shiite.

State of Law already held leads in Baghdad, whose 70 seats account for more than a fifth of Iraq's 325-member Council of Representatives, as well as Babil, Najaf, Wasit and Muthanna.

The latter four provinces are all southern predominantly Shiite areas.

Opposition blocs have alleged fraud in the March 7 polls and in the ballot counting that has ensued, but Maliki dismissed such claims, describing the complaints as being "very small" in nature.

"The complaints... cannot affect the results," h told Iraq's National Security Council in remarks broadcast on television and distributed in a statement from his office.

The television appearance was Maliki's first since polling day and since his office announced on Thursday that he had undergone surgery in a Baghdad hospital for an unspecified ailment.

Election officials also downplayed claims of fraud.

Faraj al-Haidari, who heads the national election commission, told reporters the number of complaints in the general election was less than half that of provincial polls in January last year.

Sunday's results were met with a frantic reaction in the national election commission's press room, as the results from three provinces were put on one elevated flat-screen television.

Election officials were unable to show all the figures on the screen, sparking angry shouts from journalists who were furiously taking notes.

The electoral commission has pleaded for patience as vote tabulation has been slowed by persistent computer crashes, which again affected work on Sunday.

Meanwhile, separate sets of figures released on Sunday showed secular ex-premier Iyad Allawi, a Shiite like Maliki, ahead in the disputed oil-rich province of Kirkuk, against the expectations of analysts who had predicted it would probably be won by a Kurdish bloc.

According to Sunday's results, Allawi was also leading in the Sunni bastion of Anbar, Iraq's largest province geographically and the centre of a bloody insurgency in the early years of the US-led occupation.

That brought to five the number of provinces in which Allawi's Iraqiya bloc was ahead. He also held leads in Nineveh, Iraq's second-largest province, and the predominantly Sunni central provinces of Diyala and Salaheddin.

The Iraqi National Alliance, a coalition led by Shiite-religious groups, was ahead in the Shiite southern provinces of Maysan, Diwaniyah and Dhi Qar.

Elsewhere, figures showed Kurdistania, an alliance of the Kurdish autonomous region's two long-dominant parties, ahead in the battleground province of Sulaimaniyah and Iraq's northernmost province of Dohuk.

Earlier results also put Kurdistania ahead in Arbil, seat of the Iraqi Kurdish regional government.

Despite State of Law's success, however, analysts have cautioned that rival political groups could still manoeuvre to form a coalition government that excludes it.

Iraq's proportional representation electoral system makes it unlikely that any single grouping will secure the 163 seats needed to form a government on its own, and analysts expect protracted coalition building.

Complete results from the general election are expected on March 18 and the final ones -- after any appeals are decided -- will probably come at the end of the month.

Security officials have expressed concern that a lengthy period of coalition building could give insurgent groups and Al-Qaeda an opportunity to destabilise Iraq by carrying out attacks.

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