The secret weapon: a food basket in exchange for a ballot box, and poor people’s cards are cheap currency in the dirty election market!
The secret weapon: a food basket in exchange for a ballot box, and poor people’s cards are cheap currency in the dirty election market!
8-31-2025
Information / Special ..
In heartbreaking scenes that tear apart human dignity, social media has been flooded in recent days with video clips showing poor and needy families crowding in front of the headquarters of some political parties and election candidates, panting after a meager food box, offered to them not out of humanitarian or moral duty, but rather as cheap bait in exchange for their electoral votes.
It is a blatant and humiliating exploitation of the dignity of the Iraqi people, practiced in front of everyone and marketed as “electoral assistance,” while in reality it is a full-fledged moral crime, revealing how the voter card has become a tool for political blackmail, in the hands of those who know nothing of politics except the language of theft and trading in people’s suffering.
Representative Abboud Al-Issawi, a member of the Council of Representatives, described the significant increase in electoral spending as a serious threat to the credibility of the democratic process in Iraq.
Al-Issawi told Al-Maalouma, “One of the most prominent repercussions of this phenomenon is the loss of citizens’ confidence in the next parliament, especially in light of the belief that those who win through political money will invest their seats for their personal interests, far from their oversight and legislative role.”
He added, “These practices contribute to a wide segment of citizens’ reluctance to participate in the elections, which deprives the electoral process of its true meaning and undermines popular demands for change.”
These practices are not isolated cases; rather, they have become a shameful phenomenon that recurs every election season, as the poor’s need for treatment, medicine, and a loaf of bread is exploited, and their minds are belittled to buy their votes with a few bags of flour and sugar, while the country’s wealth is plundered above and below the table.
For his part, MP Mukhtar Al-Moussawi warned against the dominance of political money in electoral campaigns, stressing that exploiting executive positions for electoral promotion weakens the opportunities for qualified candidates and threatens the integrity of the elections.
For his part, a number of political observers called for the Electoral Commission to take strict measures to monitor the financial spending of parties and candidates. They emphasized the need for complete transparency in campaign financing to determine the sources of funds being pumped into the electoral market. They pointed to the importance of strengthening oversight of political funds to protect the integrity of the electoral process and ensure fair competition among candidates.
In the same vein, Mohammed Al-Fahdawi, a leader in the United Anbar Alliance, warned Sunni and other political parties and forces against using money and material inducements to win voters, instead of offering genuine national programs that serve Iraqi society.
Al-Fahdawi told Al-Maalouma News Agency, “Through our follow-up of the meetings of political leaders in our Sunni-majority areas, we noticed that many of these meetings aim to bring down others and win voters’ votes by offering money and simple material inducements.
” He added, “Organizing large banquets and enticing tribal sheikhs to gather the largest possible number of people without proposing real national programs. If some programs are proposed, they are merely traditional proposals that do not offer radical solutions.”
He stressed that “some leaders are making financial deals with tribal sheikhs and influential people to obtain voters’ votes.”
Al-Fahdawi warned these leaders and parties against the continuation of this trend, saying, “Everyone must refrain from exploiting money and material inducements in electoral competition, and focus on proposing national programs that truly serve Iraqi society.
Political money remains a major concern that clouds the electoral process in Iraq and threatens to derail the course of democracy if these practices are not stopped.”
Faced with this bitter reality, the national responsibility of every free Iraqi citizen is evident: to distinguish between those who bought loyalties with money, and those who gave blood and money in defense of Iraq, its security, and the dignity of its people, and those who preserved blood and stood in the face of terrorism and corruption.
The real alternative for change is not unknown, but rather clear to the people: those who shed blood and stood in the face of terrorism and corruption, those who preserved the unity of Iraq and the integrity of its social fabric, those who stood in the trenches of battle when everyone else abandoned them, those who demanded rights and did not compromise on the country’s sovereignty, and those who demand the legitimate rights to a free, dignified life and sustainable security.
almaalomah.me
