Iraq denies reports on manual vote recount of parliamentary elections
elections (representational photo)
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission denied on Tuesday media reports that one of its judges had announced results of the manual vote recount of parliamentary elections, which were held on May 12.
“All reports published in the media outlets about the undergoing manual vote recount results are inaccurate and groundless,” Iraqi website Alghad Press quoted the commission’s spokesman Laith Jabor as saying in a statement.
He stressed that the panel of judges now in charge of the recount will “sue any media outlet publishing inaccurate news about the election results.”
Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper had quoted a judge assigned to conduct the recount as announcing that Kirkuk has witnessed major changes to election results following the manual vote recount in the problematic provinces, where there were fraud allegations.
Iraq has conducted a manual recount of votes from a May election only for ballots mentioned in official reports on fraud or in formal complaints.
The parliamentary election has been marred by historically low turnout and fraud allegations.
The Sairoon coalition of Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr won 54 parliamentary seats in the May 12 parliamentary polls, followed by an al-Hashd al-Shaabi-linked coalition (47 seats) and Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi’s Victory bloc (42 seats).
Al-Sadr’s coalition did not win the majority needed to form a government alone but will play a primary role in selecting the next prime minister.
Al-Sadr said he hoped to establish a “technocrat” cabinet far removed from narrow sectarian biases.