The elections resulted in a partial victory for the Iraqi National Movement, led by former Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, which won 91 seats, making it the largest alliance in the Council.

[2] On 15 January 2010, the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) banned 499 candidates from the election due to alleged links with the Ba'ath Party.

The main areas of dispute concerned the "open list" electoral system and the voters roll in Kirkuk Governorate, which Arab and Turkmen parties alleged had been manipulated by the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq.

The issue was referred to the Political Council for National Security, which comprises the President, Prime Minister and party leaders.

[18] The final law said that the results in Kirkuk - and other governorates where the rolls were deemed "dubious" - would be provisional, subject to review within the first year by a committee formed out of the electoral commission, parliament, government and UNAMI, which could cancel fraudulent ballots.

President Jalal Talabani also supported the increase to 15%, after receiving a letter from Kurdish regional MPs saying their allies from minority groups would be unfairly treated.

[21] In the event President Talabani and Vice-President Adel Abdul Mahdi signed the law despite their concerns, but Hashimi followed through his threat and vetoed it.

[29] Tribal leaders in the Sunni Arab city of Tikrit threatened to call for a poll boycott if the amended law went through and Hashemi said he would veto again.

[30] Internally displaced people will only be allowed to vote where their ration card was issued, a provision that Taha Daraa, MP in Diyala, said discriminated against them and was unconstitutional.

[19] Head of IHEC, Faraj Al Haydari, announced that curfew will be imposed and airports closed on the day of elections.

[36][37] He also wanted Sunni Arab parties like the Awakening movements to be included as primary members of the coalition to form what his spokesman termed "a truly national alliance".

Other major notable components are the Islamic Dawa Party – Tanzim al-Iraq and Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani's "Independent Bloc".

[41] The Iraqi National Movement (INM), more commonly known as al-Iraqiyya, is the main secular, non-sectarian and Nationalist list, it is headed by former prime minister Ayad Allawi.

[43] In January 2010 the De-Baathification Commission barred al-Mutlak from the election due to his previous membership of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party.

However, the Gorran Movement said the two main Kurdistani Alliance parties – the Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdish President Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iraq (KDP) – tended to "monopolize" power, and competing separately would "secure their own powers" in Baghdad.

[53] On 15 January 2010 Iraq's electoral commission banned 499 candidates, mostly Sunni Muslims, from the election due to alleged links with the Ba'ath Party.

[54] The electoral commission was criticized for alleged partiality and ties to Shi'a religious parties and some feared this decision will lead to sectarian tensions.

[56] Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, head of the Awakening councils threatened he might boycott the 2010 elections as well if the 70 banned candidates of his list were not unbanned.

[58] Iraqi President Jalal Talabani called on the Supreme Court to settle the dispute over the banned candidates saying: "We should not be unjust with them."

American Vice President Joe Biden travelled to Iraq on 23 January to try resolve the matters of the election ban.

[60] On 16 and 17 February campaign workers for the secular Ahrar party were attacked in Baghdad and Maysan governorates when trying to hang up posters.

[64] While on 18 February an al-Qaeda suicide bomber struck a government headquarters in Ramadi, al-Anbar, as part of their campaign to paralyze the elections.

[citation needed] A car bomb targeted an election convoy for Sunni candidate Ashur Hamid al-Karboul, in Khaldiyah in al-Anbar.

[67] On election day, Islamist insurgents distributed leaflets in Sunni neighbourhoods of Baghdad warning people not to go to the polls,[68] they mostly used rockets, mortars and explosive-filled plastic bottles hidden under trash to target those who did vote, this was due to a vehicle ban the government had enforced to stop car-bombings.

[citation needed] According to the Iraq Body Count, from 12 February (when the campaigning started) until 7 March (election day), at least 228 people were killed.

[81] According to the National Iraqi Alliance al-Maliki was abusing his powers as prime minister by distributing government land and plantations freely to tribal leaders to secure their votes, Maliki was also said to be giving expensive guns with gold emblems on them, to visitors.

[81] The Sadr Movement complained that the government was arresting and detaining their supporters in the days prior to the elections to prevent them from voting.

[81] Leaders of al-Iraqiyya listed a series of alleged violations by Maliki claiming some of their votes had been removed from boxes and replaced by other ballots.

[5] Iraqi Kurdish politician Khalid Shenawi, accused election workers in Arab areas in the city of Kirkuk of manipulating the results in Allawi's favour.

[6] Shenawi said that loudspeakers of mosques were used to encourage people to vote and expressed doubt over the 93% turnout in Kirkuk's Arab districts al-Zab, al-Abbasi, al-Riad.