BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq risks shattering its fragile calm if Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government does not ensure national elections late this year are more fair than recent local polls, a political rival and former leader said.

Former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi said the vote was stained by government officials exploiting state resources as they courted voters.
""If we don't rectify, if the process is not inclusive, and there are not laws in Iraq to clarify the funding and the capabilities of the various groups ... then we unfortunately will have a catastrophe in the next elections,"" Allawi said.
Allawi, like others across Iraq's querulous political landscape, also complained thousands of Iraqis were turned away from voting centers due to problems with voter registrations.
One of the most strident voices warning of possible disaster as violence subsides and optimism about a peaceful future begins to take hold, Allawi accused the independent electoral commission of falling short of its promise to be neutral.
While Iraq's most peaceful vote since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion was a step forward for Iraq's delicate democracy, Allawi said the problems that did occur demanded an overhaul of electoral rules before parliamentary polls in December.
""Frankly, (similar) results will really throw Iraq into a very severe turbulence,"" he said in a telephone interview.
Allawi, selected prime minister in 2004 by a council that was itself hand-picked by U.S. officials, is a vocal critic of U.S. failures in Iraq, blaming them for the sectarian and insurgent bloodletting that killed tens of thousands of Iraqis.
Head of a weak and unruly government in 2004-05, as Iraq sank deeper into violence, Allawi left office after 2005 elections that saw religious parties gain strength.
But his grouping came second last month in the largely Sunni Arab Salahuddin province and made a decent showing elsewhere, still far behind Maliki's State of Law coalition.
Allawi said there were reasons why Maliki, a former technocrat from Shi'ite religious party Dawa and who have won credit among voters for the sharp drop in violence, did so well.
""One of the reasons of course is him being in power, of course, and Dawa being in power,"" Allawi said. He complained his own party did not have proper access to state media and resources that left it a faint voice for some voters.
His party may forge alliances once final results are announced to consolidate power within the provincial councils, which mete out budgeted funds and pick powerful governors.
Any party with a non-sectarian agenda dedicated to providing ""electricity, water, health"" is a possible ally, Allawi said.
Iraqi politics has been abuzz with talk of new alliances of strange bedfellows. There are expectations Maliki could join with allies of Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shi'ite cleric whose militia Iraqi and U.S. forces crippled in offensives last year.
Yet despite his non-sectarian message, the secularist Allawi did not rule out an alliance with the ultra-sectarian ISCI.