Iraqi doubts about the ability of the Electoral Commission to prevent the falsification of the results of the provincial elections
Iraqi doubts about the ability of the Electoral Commission to prevent the falsification of the results of the provincial elections
7-3-2023
BAGHDAD – Iraqi civil and political circles question the ability of the Independent High Electoral Commission to ensure transparent elections for the provincial councils, and to prevent tampering with their results.
The circles say that the measures announced by the Commission on Saturday to prevent any fraud in the polling stations remain insufficient, and there is a great deal of work that the concerned authorities must do, including the issue of employing political money in the electoral process.
These circles indicate that the commission’s limitation of control to polling stations will not be important to ensure the integrity of entitlement, especially since fraud does not usually take place inside these offices, but rather during the process of transferring boxes between stations, and also through the electronic counting of votes.
And the Independent High Electoral Commission announced the installation of surveillance cameras at polling stations, in a measure that is the first of its kind to prevent any attempts to manipulate and forge voting results.
A member of the commission’s media team, Imad Jamil, said in press statements on Sunday, “The commission is working according to procedures to implement the provincial elections law for the year 2023, which was approved by Parliament.”
Jamil explained that the law contains many articles and paragraphs, and the Commission is committed to implementing them, including the establishment of centers to audit stations in all governorates, as well as manual counting and sorting and announcing the results 24 hours after the elections, and the arrival of electronic results from the stations within six hours of the polling process.
He added, “There are many things that will be taken to reduce the process of tampering with the results, including installing cameras in all the 47,000 electoral stations.” “The employees who will participate in the polling process will be trained, including employees of the Ministries of Education and Higher Education,” Jamil confirmed.
He pointed out that “the registration period for political parties and entities started on the first day of July, while the registration of candidates participating in the provincial elections will start from the fifteenth of July to the thirteenth of next August.”
On the twentieth of last June, the Iraqi government announced that the eighteenth of December will be set as the date for holding the provincial elections for the year 2023. These elections are of great importance to the Iraqi political forces, as they are the gateway to controlling local governments.
The role of the provincial councils is to choose the governor and his two deputies and to prepare the province’s budget in light of the financial appropriations allocated to them by the central government. These councils have the right to dismiss governors and heads of departments. These councils are chosen based on the size of the demographics of each province. The expected elections include fifteen provinces out of eighteen, with the exception of three provinces within the Kurdistan region that are not included in the elections.
These are the first local elections to be held in Iraq since April 2013. More than 23 million people are eligible to vote. On Saturday, the High Elections Commission announced the start of receiving applications for registration of alliances wishing to participate in the upcoming elections, which indications say that the competition will be fierce.
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