ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) has received 102 complaints about the parliamentary election, but they are not expected to affect the results, its spokesperson told Rudaw on Saturday.
“The total complaints of general and special voting have reached 102 complaints,” said IHEC spokesperson Jumana al-Ghalai.
Fifty-nine of the complaints relate to the general vote on November 11 and 43 are from the special vote two days prior. The total number of complaints is less than a third of what IHEC received after the 2021 election.
Most of the complaints have been categorized as yellow, meaning they do not meet legal conditions and are rejected outright. A small number are green, involving alleged violations by commission staff, campaigning on voting day, or misconduct by security forces at polling stations. These require administrative investigations, but do not change outcomes.
All the objections IHEC received fall under complaints rather than legal challenges, Hassan Salman, a legal adviser to the commission, told Iraqi state media on Saturday, adding that there have been no red complaints, the category that could influence the outcome.
Iraq’s electoral body announced preliminary results on Wednesday, with Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani’s coalition securing more than 1.3 million votes, equivalent to 45 seats, according to Rudaw’s calculations.
Iraq’s Foreign Ministry on Friday thanked the Arab League, the United Nations, and the European Union for their assistance and monitoring of Tuesday’s parliamentary elections.
The Arab League’s observer mission on Thursday issued its preliminary findings, reporting cases of individuals standing outside polling centers promoting candidates in violation of campaign-silence rules, as well as the absence of international monitors inside polling stations, but concluded that Iraqis had been able to exercise their right to vote.
The vote was Iraq’s sixth parliamentary election since the fall of the Baath regime in 2003. Turnout exceeded 55 percent, surpassing expectations and well above the 41 percent recorded in the October 2021 elections.
Nahro Mohammed contributed to this report.