“The number of appeals submitted from the general vote amounted to 329, while the number of complaints from the special vote was 27,” Hassanein Laith, head of the complaints division at the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), told state media. The general vote was held on October 10 and a special vote took place two days earlier for security forces, displaced persons, and prisoners.
“All these complaints and appeals are looked into by the commission,” Laith said.
Preliminary results gave the Sadrist bloc a wide lead with at least 70 representatives in the 329-seat legislature.
Several parties have alleged fraud. The Fatih Alliance and several other Shiite parties that lost seats said they rejected the results and would appeal them. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) also alleged fraud in Erbil.
The window for submitting an appeal of the election results closed on Thursday and all complaints will be resolved within seven days, after which the judiciary has 10 days to review the complaint and resolution, Ali Said Jassim, legal director of IHEC’s complaints department, told state media. “After the complaints are resolved, the final results will be announced,” he said.
Under the law, the final results can also be appealed, he added.
Once the results are ratified by the Supreme Court, a process of forming the government is set in motion, as dictated by the constitution. Within 15 days of the ratification of the results, the president calls on the parliament to meet, chaired by its eldest member, and elect a speaker and two deputies by an absolute majority. The parliament also elects a president by a two-thirds majority.
The president then tasks the largest bloc in the parliament with forming the government, naming a prime minister within 15 days of the election of the president. The prime minister-elect then has 30 days to name a cabinet.
