Iraq's interim Finance Minister Adil Abdul Mehdi on Monday warned that the Jan. 30 elections might be engaged in fraud.

"We can't go to all the regions in Iraq to monitor the voting, and we are seriously afraid that fraud might take place," he told reporters in Baghdad.

Mehdi complained that the lack of security in some Sunni-dominated provinces would allow some ineligible voters to cast their ballots.

The minister is one of the leading candidates on the Shiite Muslim list. He is a member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.