Iraq's electoral commission said yesterday it would announce partial results of parliamentary elections today, giving an incomplete picture of the vote that will nevertheless provide the broad outlines of the country's political landscape.

Party officials have acknowledged that a relatively small number of seats may separate Iraq's leading coalitions, a sign that negotiations to form a new government could be protracted. Although the lists of candidates led by Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki and Ayad Allawi, a former prime minister, appear to be polling best, officials with a predominantly Shiite Muslim coalition predicted they would come in third and perhaps even second.

The Kurds were expected to poll well, too. Turnout in the three provinces of the autonomous region they control in northern Iraq was among the highest in the country.