Newspaper: 62 mobilization figures to run in upcoming elections
Popular Mobilization Units
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Sixty-two figures from Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces have fulfilled legal requirements for running for the country’s upcoming parliament and local elections, a newspaper has reported.
London-based the New Arab said 62 senior PMF figures have obtained legal clearances to run the upcoming polls slated for May.
It quoted a senior official source within the High Elections Commissions saying that those personalities applied for nomination after disassociation with their militias and forming 11 political parties, therefore acquiring a civilian classification.
The source explained that the commission’s laws prohibit nomination for active military, police and PMF members. He explained that those nominees, having
PMF had actively backed the Iraqi government’s military campaign against Islamic State militants since the emergence of the group in 2014 and the announcement of its defeat earlier this month. The Iran-backed, Shia force, formed upon a clerical decree to counter IS in 2014, won official recognition in 2016 as a national armed force under the prime minister’s command.
Iraq has recently decided to run parliament and provincial elections simultaneously on May 12th.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi recurrently stressed that the polls would be held on time, denying the possibility of postponement, and reiterating that armed groups were not allowed to nominate.