Thursday, March 28, 2024

Baghdad

Iraqi parliament to discuss elections objections on Saturday

 Iraqi parliament to discuss elections objections on Saturday

Parliament Speaker Salim al-Jabouri

Parliament Speaker Salim al-Jabouri

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) The Iraqi parliament is holding an emergency session next Saturday to discuss political group’s objections to parliament elections results, according to an official document.

The document, published by Alsumaria News, bearing the name of parliament speaker, Salim al-Jubouri, said the session will be held upon a request by 81 parliamentarians to discuss irregularities in the electoral process, especially in the province of kirkuk.

Earlier, the State of the Law, the electoral list led by Iraqi Vice President Nuri al-Maliki, said a new government cannot be formed before addressing the violations witnessed during the recent parliamentary elections.

In a press statement, Abbas al-Mosawi, spokesperson of the State of the Law, said “we reject the formation of a new government challenged by problems and questioning…to correct the situation, the [electoral] commission is required to rerun the vote counting randomly by 5%, or make an overall recount, or cancel the elections and run new polls”.

He specially urged to scrutinize the votes made by expatriates, and urged a parliament session to handle the issue.

Several political groups, especially in Kurdistan, have called for a manual recount of votes, which Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi welcomed to end the disputes.

Earlier on Thursday, Abadi’s office said the prime minister had referred to the Integrity Authority a violation by the High Electoral Commission related to its failure to hire a specialized firm to check and verify the soundness of electronic vote counters.

Maliki, a former prime minister and an ardent ally of Iran, has made poor results through his State of the Law bloc. Abadi’s al-Nasr list came third as per preliminary results of the elections. First came Saeroon list, sponsored by Shia leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, a populist seeking to break away from Iranian influence and scathingly opposed to foreign military presence in Iraq. Second came al-Fatah, an alliance of former leaders of the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces, the Shia-led troops that backed government forces campaign, under Abadi, to drive out Islamic State militants since 2014.

Final results of the vote are yet to be announced.

 

Leave a Reply