Low voter turnout, boycott help to mar elections in Iraq
BAGHDAD — Iraqis voted Sunday in parliamentary elections meant to herald sweeping change to a dysfunctional political system that has dragged the country through almost two decades of deprivation.
A new electoral system made it easier this time for independent candidates to compete, but the vote was expected to chip away at the edges of Iraq’s troubles. Traditional political factions, many of them attached to militias, have seemingly insurmountable power, and much of the electorate has become too disdainful of politicians to feel compelled to vote at all.
Turnout appeared to be low at many polling sites, where election workers put in place the new voting system, which uses biometric cards and other safeguards intended to limit serious fraud that has marred past elections.
Voting also was marked by widespread apathy and a boycott by many of the activists who thronged the streets of Baghdad and Iraq’s southern provinces in late 2019. Tens of thousands of people took part in the mass protests and were met by security forces firing live ammunition and tear gas. More than 600 people were killed and thousands injured within just a few months.
Results are expected within the next 24 hours, according to the independent body that oversees Iraq’s election. But negotiations to choose a prime minister tasked with forming a government are expected to drag on for weeks or even months.
Iraq’s Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, whose chances for a second term will be determined by the results of the election, urged Iraqis to vote in large numbers.
“Get out and vote, and change your future,” said al-Kadhimi, repeating the phrase, “get out” three times after casting his ballot at a school in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, home to foreign embassies and government offices.
The election was the sixth held since the fall of Saddam Hussein after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
With more independent candidates vying for seats, voters Sunday had more choices — which for many were personal rather than political.
“The big parties have not done anything for Iraq; they looted Iraq,” said Mahdi Hassan el-Esa, 82, outside a polling station in the upper-middle-class Mansour neighborhood of Baghdad. He said he voted for an independent candidate because the man came to his door and helped him and his disabled sons register to vote.
Despair kept some voters away from the polls, but others were motivated by the hope that individual candidates could make a difference in their families’ lives.
In the poor Sadr City neighborhood on Baghdad’s outskirts, where a majority of Sadr City voters were expected to cast ballots for the political movement loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, voices of dissent existed there.
“I do not want to participate in the corruption that is happening to this country,” said Mohammad, an army officer who said he, his family and his friends were all going to spoil their ballots in protest. He said people still had faith in al-Sadr but not in the corrupt politicians running in his name. He asked that only his first name be used to avoid retaliation for criticizing the al-Sadr movement.
The Shiite cleric, who fought U.S. troops in 2004, has become a major political figure in Iraq, even when he disavows politics. This year after a fire in a COVID19 hospital overseen by a Sadrist provincial health director, al-Sadr announced that his movement would not participate in elections. He later changed his mind, saying the next prime minister should be from the al-Sadr movement.
Earlier Sunday, al-Sadr cast his ballot in the Shiite holy city of Najaf.
Voting in most cities was free of election violence, but the campaign has been marked by intimidation and attacks on candidates.
The body of a activist in the southern province of Diwaniya was found floating in a river Saturday, two days after he was abducted. The man, Hayder al-Zameli, had posted cartoons on social media critical of the followers of Iraqi parties.