BAGHDAD: Iraq will begin a manual recount of votes on Tuesday from a May parliamentary election clouded by allegations of fraud, a step toward the formation of a new parliament and government.
Only suspect ballots flagged in formal complaints or official reports on fraud will be recounted, a spokesman for the panel of judges conducting the recount said on Saturday.
“The manual recount will be conducted in the presence of representatives from the United Nations, foreign embassies and political parties; as well as local and international observers, members of the media, and the Ministries of Defense and the Interior,” Judge Laith Jabr Hamza said in a statement.
In seven provinces where many complaints of fraud were made — Kirkuk, Sulaimaniya, Irbil, Dohuk, Nineveh, Salahuddin and Anbar — the recount will be conducted by the local electoral offices, Hamza said.
Those ballot boxes which had already been transferred to Baghdad will be recounted in the capital.
The recount has been a politically fraught issue with the leaders of winning blocs embroiled in negotiations for weeks over the formation of the next government.
Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi, whose electoral list came third in the poll marred by a historically low turnout, and the winner, cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr, entered into an alliance last week, less than two weeks after Sadr announced a similar alliance with second-placed Iran ally Hadi Al-Amiri’s bloc, thus bringing the top three blocs together.
The recount will exclude Baghdad where a storage site holding half of Baghdad’s ballot boxes went up in flames earlier this month in an incident Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi described as a “plot to harm the nation and its democracy.”
Overseas votes in Iran, Turkey, Britain, Lebanon, Jordan, the United States and Germany will also be recounted, Hamza said.
Earlier in June, the outgoing parliament passed a law mandating a nationwide manual recount of all votes, but the panel of judges now in charge of the process said it would only be conducted for those problematic ballots.
Iraq to begin manual recount of May election votes on Tuesday
Iraq to begin manual recount of May election votes on Tuesday
- Only those problematic ballots flagged in formal complaints or official reports on fraud allegations will be recounted
- The recount will start in Kirkuk province and will extend to six further provinces: Sulaimaniya, Irbil, Dohuk, Nineveh, Salaheddin and Anbar
Iran’s foreign minister heads to Muscat for nuclear talks with US
- Iran will engage in the talks “with authority and with the aim of reaching a fair, mutually acceptable and dignified understanding on the nuclear issue,” a spokesperson said
TEHRAN: Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has departed for the Omani capital Muscat at the head of a diplomatic delegation for nuclear talks with the US due to be held on Friday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson said.
The US and Iran have agreed to hold talks in Oman on Friday, officials for both sides said, even as they remain at odds over Washington’s insistence that negotiations must include Tehran’s missile arsenal and Iran’s vow to discuss only its nuclear program.
Iran will engage in the talks “with authority and with the aim of reaching a fair, mutually acceptable and dignified understanding on the nuclear issue,” the spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said on Thursday.
“We hope the American side will also participate in this process with responsibility, realism and seriousness,” Baghaei added.
