ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq's electoral judicial body on Sunday disqualified a prominent Sunni politician from entering parliament despite his winning nearly 40,000 votes in the latest election, two officials from the country’s electoral commission told Rudaw.
Najm al-Jabouri won 39,464 votes during Iraq's national elections on November 11. He was also the head of Nineveh province's Nineveh for Its People list.
Jumana al-Ghalai, spokesperson for the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), and Hayman Tahsin, head of the IHEC's political parties' affairs, confirmed to Rudaw that Jabouri has been disqualified. The two said the Sunni politician was disqualified due to alleged ties to the Baath regime.
Jabouri was the governor of the Sunni-majority Nineveh province from 2019 to 2023. He resigned from the position after being prohibited from running for the latest local elections for his alleged past links to the Baath regime.
He is also a retired lieutenant general who commanded Iraqi forces during the battle against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Nineveh.
In a late Sunday phone interview, Jabouri told Rudaw that he “had not received any notification or official letter regarding the exclusion decision” as of the time of the call.
He further declined to make an official statement on the situation, saying only, “All I know about the matter is what the media is reporting, and I do not have any official information to base a position or statement on at this time.”
Leading up to the elections in September, the IHEC announced that a total of 370 candidates had been disqualified from participating on charges of links to the Bath party under the Accountability and Justice Act.
Enacted in 2008, the law governs the process of de-Baathification, defined as “intellectually, administratively, politically, culturally and economically dismantling the Baath party system in Iraqi society, state institutions, and civil society institutions."
The Baath party had ruled Iraq from 1968 until 2003, following the US-led invasion that ousted longtime Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Updated at 10:25 pm with remarks from Jabouri.