Iraq's deputy president, Nouri al-Maliki, in a meeting with UN secretary general's special envoy for Iraq, Jan Kubis on Monday, emphasized that formation of a new Iraqi government is unwise and invalid, without first looking into allegations of election fraud.

At the meeting which took place on Monday, Maliki and Kubis discussed fraud allegations in relation to Iraq's May parliamentary election, as well as the need to reform existing legislation, or introduction of new legislation to help combat election fraud.

Parliament has mandated a manual recount of the election in which a number of parties alleged fraud. A storage site holding half of Baghdad’s ballot boxes went up in flames on Sunday in what Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi denounced as a “plot to harm the nation and its democracy”.

An Iraqi court ordered the arrest of four people accused of setting fire to the storage site, state television reported.

Earlier, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Sunday that burning of ballot-box storage site is a plot to sabotage the country's democratic process.

The ballot boxes are part of a manual recount of votes from the May election, mandated in a law passed by the Iraqi parliament on June 6.

The recount was approved by parliament a day after Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, whose bloc came third in the election, said there had been serious violations.