On Friday 10th August, Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) announced the final results of the parliamentary elections following a manual recount of a significant portion of the votes, which ended on Monday 6th August. The manual recount was conducted after widespread allegations of fraud and electoral violations in a number of provinces in the country. The results show very little change from the original results that were released in May.
Muqtada al-Sadr’s bloc, the Sa’iroun Alliance, has retained its position as the winner of the highest number of seats, with no change to the original seat count at 54. The Fatah Coalition emerged, once again as the second largest bloc with 48 seats, one more than its earlier tally of 47. Meanwhile, the incumbent Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s bloc, the Nasr Coalition, remained in third place with 42 seats.
Following the announcement, the IHEC said that the results of the manual recount “demonstrate the soundness of the electronic system used in the original vote count”. However, increasing evidence suggests that the digitised system, which was initially intended to help regulate and speed up the vote-counting process, was not secure enough to prevent it from being tampered with.
While the election results were not expected to vary greatly from the original results, there will be many questions surrounding the way the recount was carried out as the new results appear almost identical to those released in May, despite the widespread allegations of fraud as well as reports that the electronic system was riddled with flaws.
However, there is little chance that this would translate into significant calls for another re-evaluation of the results, given the growing public impatience at the lack of progress in the formation of the government.
In terms of the process that will lead to the formation of the new government, the Iraqi Supreme Court will still need to ratify the results in order for them to become final. (see infographic)
In the meantime, parties may still contest the results. Gorran has already announced that they have rejected the final results and will seek to appeal against it to the Supreme Court. The Governor of Anbar, Mohammad al-Halbusi, the head of the Anbar Is Our Identity bloc, has also rejected the decision by the IHEC to cancel the votes of Internally Displaced People (IDP) and votes from residents in the town of al-Qa’im.
Once the results are ratified, a 90-day timeline for the formation of the government will begin. This will begin with the new parliament reconvening and electing the Speaker of Parliament, its deputies as well as the President. From then, the president will ask the largest bloc to assign the Prime Minister and form the Council of Ministers, which will then need to be approved by a majority of parliamentarians before the government is officially formed.
