BAGHDAD, Feb. 12 (Xinhuanet) -- The Iraqi Shiite alliance re-elected the current Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari as their candidate for prime minister in the new government.

The Iraqi Shiite alliance re-elected the current Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari as their candidate for prime minister in the new government.(Xinhua/AFP photo)

    A member of the alliance made the announcement to reporters outside the headquarters of the leading Shiite party in southern Baghdad.

    "Jaafari won 64 votes, while Adel Abdul Mehdi garnered 63 with two invalid votes after a total of 129 alliance members participated in the vote," the alliance member told reporters.

    Politicians of the United Iraqi Alliance, a Shiite bloc, held a meeting earlier on Sunday to discuss the nomination of a prime minister for the coming government after Shiites were confirmed as a victor in the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections.

    The meeting held in the headquarters of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which is a huge heavily fortified complex in Baghdad's southern district of al-Jadriyah.

    The race was exclusively between the current Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who heads the Dawa party, and Adel Abdul Mehdi, a leading politician in the SCIRI, headed by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.

    Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari is a medical doctor and the head of the Shiite Islamic Dawa Party. Jaafari was born in 1947. He fled to Iran in 1980 for his opposition to the then Saddam Hussein regime, and later settled in London.

    After the U.S.-led invasion Jaafari became a member of the U.S.-installed Governing Council, and became prime minister when a government was formed in April following the January 2005 parliamentary elections.

    Iraq's elections commission announced on Friday the certified final results of the Dec. 15 elections, which confirmed the Shiite coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, remained the largest bloc in the new 275-member parliament with 128 seats. Enditem