Iraq completes recount of May ballots

Iraq concluded a manual recount of votes from a national poll held in May, with results of the investigation into reported voter fraud expected within days.

The parliament ordered the recount in June after a government report found widespread allegations of voter fraud associated with the electronic vote-counting system.

The Independent High Electoral Commission said yesterday it had “completed the recount” but that votes in half of the capital would not be recounted.

A fire at a warehouse where the votes were stored in June had made the recount impossible to complete, the Iraqi state broadcaster announced.

It is not clear until the results of the investigation are announced whether the recount will affect the number of seats allocated by the May 12 vote, nor ongoing negotiations to form a coalition government.

The investigation has been fraught from the start. In June, the commssion leadership was suspended and replaced with a panel of judges to monitor the process.

The judges then announced that a recount of ballots would “be carried out only in areas where there were complaints of corruption and ballot stuffing”.

This included several overseas voting posts and electoral offices in seven provinces: Kirkuk, Sulaymaniyah, Erbil, Dohuk, Nineveh, Salahuddin and Anbar. The uncertainty over the election outcome has fuelled tensions at a time when impatience is growing over a lack of basic services, unemployment and the pace of rebuilding after a three-year war with ISIS that cost billions of dollars.

The May 12 election delivered a surprisingly high number of seats for allies of Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr, who campaigned as a political outsider against corruption but did not win an outright majority.

Politicians have since been locked in negotiations to form a ruling coalition.

Iraq has had three parliaments with four-year terms since dictator Saddam Hussein was toppled in the 2003 United States-led invasion.