“The mechanisms for the manual recount of the votes started on Saturday morning. Currently, only the employees of the commission’s offices carry out the task. Other employees will be recruited if needed,” Ali Qadir, head of the Erbil office of the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), told Rudaw.
The winning lists of the election believe the manual recount process will be lengthy. They argue the recount won’t make a big difference in the number of seats won by each list, and will finally drag the country into a legal and governance vacuum.
“Currently, the judges supervise the office work, although heads of the offices have not stopped their work. They continue to work, and are waiting for the authorities to make a final decision on the matter,” added Qadir.
Adil Lami, a member of the winning Sayirun Alliance, forecasts problems ahead.
“The term of the parliament will expire on June 30, 2018. It won’t have legitimacy on July 1. This way, we will run into a constitutional vacuum because the recount of the votes will not finish by then. And by that time, the government will be a care-taker one and cannot implement any decision that requires the parliament to vote on,” has said.
However, the Nasr (Victory) Alliance headed by the incumbent Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi thinks the fate of the parliamentary seats will soon be decided, and the recount process won’t affect discussions on government formation.
Munir Adad, Nasr member, reiterated that the vote won’t be complete until the judiciary gives a thumbs-up.
“The verdict ruled by the federal court is the final say on the matter, which was a logical verdict that satisfied all parties. This calmed the situations and won’t affect the formation of the government,” said Adad.
Like politicians, the Iraqi people are polarized on the issue of the election recount. Some uphold the verdict to manually recount the votes, and some think this is only playing with time and procrastinating the demands of the people.
“Manually recounting the votes is a new problem, and will drag Iraq into a problem we don’t know its end,” Abdullah Kanani, a resident of Baghdad, told Rudaw.
Ahmad Khalil, another resident of Baghdad, takes a different stance.
“I think the verdict ruled by the federal government is a victory for the votes of the nation. The verdict also restores honor to the federal court,” he told Rudaw.
Iraq held a parliamentary election May 12. Disputes over the results have protracted coalition building for the next government.
On Thursday, an Iraqi federal court ruled that parliament's decision to manually recount votes cast is constitutional, but the annulment of IDP, diaspora, and advance votes is not.
