The surprisingly severe narrowing of the government's working majority and the emergence of the Democratic Party as a major force, but still one far short of a majority, left the country strangely without any clear direction for change.
But even though Allawi's group had won the most votes, it had not captured a majority, leaving both him and Maliki scrambling for coalition partners.
In north-east Scotland, the Liberal Democrats remained the biggest single party in Aberdeen but fell short of a majority, leaving the council under no overall control.
But it concluded that soaring fees and drop-out rates meant that a majority left with nothing more than extra debt.Elsewhere in the Americas, though, the story is far more positive.
But the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), a left-wing pro-independence party, almost doubled its vote.Neither the CiU nor the second-placed Socialists now have a majority, leaving the balance of power in the hands of the ERC leader, Josep Lluís Carod-Rovira.
It meant that for poor children with high levels of intelligence, a majority left school in the 1980s without two A-levels.
In the previous Delhi election, the BJP won the most seats but fell short of a majority, leaving the AAP - which came second - to form a coalition with the Congress party.
A system that allows candidates to win without a majority leaves the door open for "winners" that a majority of voters oppose.
Of all California teachers, she calculates, barely more than half, rather than "an overwhelming majority," leave with less than 30 years of service.
