Invalid Votes In Iraqi Election Could Fuel Recount Controversy

The Middle East Media Research Institute’s blog has found a discrepancy in Iraq’s March 2010 parliamentary election. When voting was completed on March 7, the Iraqi Election Commission declared that 12 million people had participated. By March 22, 95% of the vote had been tabulated. That would mean the Election Commission had gone through 11,400,000 votes. The numbers released so far however show only 10,813,216 ballots having been counted. That means around 600,000 votes have been invalidated. With only 11,000 votes separating former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s Iraqi National Movement from current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law, those thrown out ballots may become part of the growing controversy over the legitimacy of the election.

Currently, Maliki is calling for a manual recount of the votes, claiming fraud. This only came about when Allawi was threatening to pass the Prime Minister in the overall vote count, which the National Movement eventually did. Since then Maliki has been rallying governors in southern Iraq that belong to his State of Law list to call for a recount, and hold demonstrations demanding one. On March 21, 2010 for example, several southern provinces held a meeting in Basra that ended with a call for a recount on the grounds that foreign and domestic parties were trying to steal the election for Allawi. Maliki’s State of Law joins a chorus of other complaints by almost all of the major parties that there were irregularities and cheating during the balloting. So far, the Election Commission has refused to give in to this pressure, but as more and more parties with greater power file complaints, and they begin taking to the streets like State of Law followers have begun to, the Commission may have to give in some how, which would mean another long delay to the official results of the election being announced.

SOURCES

AK News, "Iraqis protest for re-tally," 3/25/10
- “Karbala province demands manual recounting,” 3/22/10

Aswat al-Iraq, “9 provinces demand manual counting,” 3/23/10
- "Demonstration in Kut demands manual recounting of votes," 3/25/10
- “No manual recounting of votes – IHEC,” 3/24/10

Babylon & Beyond, “IRAQ: Preliminary estimates on election results,” Los Angeles Times, 3/24/10

Fadel, Leila and Hussein, Jinan, “Prime minister warns of violence, but election board rejects call for recount,” Washington Post, 3/22/10

Al Rafidayn, Sotal Iraq, Wasat, Al Iraq, Alsumaria TV, “Iraq Votes – Part X,” MEMRI Blog, 3/24/10