ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s electoral body said Sunday it has excluded six candidates who had won parliamentary seats in the November legislative ballot, including a former governor, adding that the final election results are expected to be ratified by the country’s top judicial authority “within two days.”
The state-run Iraqiya News channel quoted Hassan Salman, the legal advisor at the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), as stating that the "number of candidates who have been excluded post the elections until this moment has reached about six candidates," pointing to “real changes in the results.”
He added that some electoral lists “lost seats that had been allocated to them following the exclusion of winning candidates,” and revealed a shift in the women’s quota in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province, where “the quota seat moved from one list to another.”
Earlier on Sunday, two IHEC officials told Rudaw that the disqualifications also affected prominent Sunni Arab politician Najm al-Jabouri, despite his having secured 39,464 votes in the November ballot.
Jumana al-Ghalai, the IHEC spokesperson, and Hayman Tahsin, head of the commission’s political parties affairs department, confirmed to Rudaw that Jabouri was disqualified over perceived links to the former Baath regime.
Jabouri served as governor of Iraq’s northern Nineveh province from 2019 to 2023. He resigned after being barred from running in the most recent local elections due to the same allegations regarding his past links to the Baath regime.
In a phone interview late Sunday, 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 issue an official statement, 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.”
Also on Sunday, speaking to state media, Imad Jamil, head of the Commission’s media team, said the IHEC’s Board of Commissioners “will submit the election results to the Federal Supreme Court for ratification within the next two days.”
Earlier in the day, the Electoral Judicial Panel - an affiliate of Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council, the highest administrative authority overseeing the ordinary judiciary - announced that it has “concluded the review of all appeals submitted regarding the election results,” adding that “the number of appeals reached 853.”
Iraq held its early legislative ballot on November 9, followed by the general vote on November 11. The final results were announced in mid-November, coinciding with the deadline for political parties and candidates to submit appeals.
According to the IHEC, voter turnout exceeded 55 percent, surpassing expectations and marking a significant increase from the 41 percent recorded in the October 2021 elections.
Notably, turnout in the Kurdistan Region reached nearly 74 percent.