BAGHDAD, January 19, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – An international assessment team on Thursday, January 19, documented violations and cases of fraud in Iraq's recent parliamentary elections, but made no call for repeating any voting from the December 15 polls.

"Fraud and other violations did take place," the International Mission for Iraqi Elections (IMIE) said in a 10-page report cited by Agence France Presse (AFP).

It noted that fraud had forced the Independent Electoral Commission in Iraq (IECI) to nullify the results from several dozen polling stations "where significant offenses occurred".

The IMIE report said that some of Iraq's 220,000 election workers were among those blamed for violating their code of conduct with "questionable or illegal practices."

It added that some Iraqi security forces voted on election day after casting ballots previously on an earlier day set aside for them.

The international team arrived in Iraq late December to review the results after demands by scores of Iraqi groups, including leading Sunnis coalitions and former prime minister Iyad Allawi' party, for fresh poll.

Iraqi general elections, whose final results have not yet been announced, were held to elect a new four-year term parliament, the first since the 2003 US invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime.

The international team said the IECI did not have the means to investigate all complaints.

"A large number of complaints could not be treated with requisite rigor because of lack of technical and human resources," it maintained.

The Iraqi independent commission had received more than 2,000 complaints about ballot box stuffing and theft, tally sheet tampering, intimidation, violence, incorrect voter lists, ballot shortages, multiple voting, improper police and military conduct, campaigning within polling centers and violations of a pre-election ban on campaigning.

The international team asserted that additional fraud "in all probability" went undetected but maintained it "did not receive definitive evidence of other significant shortcomings in the conduct of the elections."

The IMIE, a 10-nation monitoring body led by Canada, gave no overall assessment on the likely integrity of the results.

But it said that the elections' legal framework, institutions, and procedures were "designed to meet international standards."

It also called for establishing an Iraqi government representing all sects of Iraqi society.

"The result of this election confirmed to the team that there is an urgent need, at this period in the history of Iraq, for a formation of a government of true national unity."

The 275-member legislature's first task will be to appoint a president and two vice presidents who will then have 15 days to name a prime minister.