FILE: Baghdad, Iraq - May 12, 2018 (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
1. Various of voter getting registered, filling in his ballot inside booth at polling station
2. Voter getting ballot scanned
3. Voter dipping finger into ink
4. Various of voters filling in their ballots inside booth

Baghdad, Iraq - June 24, 2018 (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
5. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Naim al-Abudi, member, al-Fath bloc:
"So far, different parties can't be united by formal and specific clauses. It's just a loose coalition of parties with similar political views. So we don't think a strong alliance will be formed until the election result is confirmed. To be frank, a strong and stable government can't formed in Iraq without the participation of Sadr and al-Fath bloc."
6. Naim al-Abudi at interview

FILE: Baghdad, Iraq - May 12, 2018 (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
7. Various of staffs at work, helping voters casting ballots
8. Various of voters casting ballots
9. Various of voters at polling station
10. National flags of Iraq
11. Various of voters going through security checks at entrance
12. Various of pedestrians, police officers on duty near polling station

Iraq is still facing an uncertain political future in forming a new government after an election marred by fraud allegations, though top winning blocs have been lobbying each other to form the largest party, an expert said in Baghdad on Wednesday.

Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and incumbent Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced on Saturday to form a political alliance between their blocs, Sa'iroon (led by Sadr), which won the largest number of seats in the May 12 election, and al-Nasr (led by Abadi), which came third in the election. The move is part of the process to form the largest alliance in the coming parliament.

Although the two leaders called for other parties to join in, the idea of seeking a trilateral alliance with al-Fath bloc led by Hadi al-Ameri, which came second in the election, was not mentioned at the joint press conference in Sadr's headquarters in the city of Najaf in the south of Baghdad.

Yet on June 12, Sadr announced to team up with al-Fath bloc, which means getting nearly a third of the parliament seats.

According to the Iraqi constitution, only a majority party, which means a party receives more than half of the parliament seats, is entitled to choose a prime minister candidate and form a government.

Naim al-Abudi, a member of al-Fath bloc, said the move only means that the preliminary agreement to form an alliance has been reached, stressing his party won't be absent from in the government formation.

"So far, different parties can't be united by formal and specific clauses. It's just a loose coalition of parties with similar political views. So we don't think a strong alliance will be formed until the election result is confirmed. To be frank, a strong and stable government can't formed in Iraq without the participation of Sadr and al-Fath bloc," said Abudi.

The latest announcement of the two political blocs came two days after Iraq's Supreme Federal Court said the parliament's earlier decision to manually recount votes of the country's parliamentary election is constitutional.

The court's decision came after it received several complaints over the parliamentary decision on June 6 to amend the election law and to carry out recount of votes in all polling stations across Iraq over allegations of fraud and irregularities in the election.

Many Iraqi parties, especially in the Kurdish region and the disputed areas, including Kirkuk province, have complained about alleged irregularities and forgery in the parliamentary election.

On May 12, millions of Iraqis went to 8,959 polling centers across the country to vote for their parliamentary representatives in the first general election after Iraq's historic victory over the Islamic State group last December.