Iraq’s pro-Iran groups reject ‘scam’ election results after loss

dpa Baghdad Pro-Iran groups said on Tuesday they reject the results of Iraq’s parliamentary elections, after initial returns showed that their blocs suffe...

dpa BaghdadPro-Iran groups said on Tuesday they reject the results of Iraq’s parliamentary elections, after initial returns showed that their blocs suffered big losses.The head of the Fatah coalition, Hadi al-Amiri, said: “We will not accept these fabricated results.” “We will defend the votes of our candidates and our voters with full force,” he added, according to Shafaq news website.Al-Amiri’s bloc won around 14 seats, a significant decline from the 47 seats it won in 2018, which made it the second largest bloc in the previous parliament. Fatah and three other groups said in a joint statement earlier that they will contest the results. The electoral commission said the door for complaints was open until Thursday.Kataib Hezbollah militia, another pro-Iran group, described the election as “the biggest scam ... in modern history,” the group’s spokesman Abu Ali al-Askari said.Both the Fatah coalition and Kataib Hezbollah are part of the powerful paramilitary Hashd Shaabi umbrella group, also known as the Popular Mobilization Forces. Preliminary results showed that populist Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s list maintained its position as the largest bloc in parliament.“The Sadrists were always predicted to be doing well due to their solid supporter base,” Farhad Alaaldin, political analyst and head of the Iraq Advisory Council, said.They also benefited from a low turnout, he added.Sunday’s elections were held several months earlier than scheduled in response to the pro-reform street protests that kicked off in October 2019.However, turnout was 41 per cent, a record low amid widespread frustration with the country’s political elite and boycott calls by most supporters of the protest movement.The head of the EU election observers, Viola von Cramon, told a press conference in Baghdad that the elections were “orderly and well-managed.” “There is no reason for this kind of accusation,” she said, when asked about the reaction of the blocs rejecting the results.She said violent election-related incidents were rare, though the potential intimidation of party-affiliated non-state armed actors “may have had an effect on voters choice and turnout.” “Iraq had a very peaceful election day and I command the people of Iraq for this conduct. There should be no space for violence in the post-election period,” she added.