Iraqis set for early parliamentary election amid multiple crises
Al Jazeera
An early vote emerged as one of the central demands from the bloody protests in 2019.
In response to the mass protest movement in 2019, Iraq is holding its early parliamentary election on Sunday amid calls for a boycott, increasing distrust towards the existing political system, and a crippled economy exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic – but there is also a glimmer of hope.
An early election emerged as one of the central demands from the soon-turned-bloody demonstrations that swept across Baghdad and Iraq’s southern region in 2019. With the newly introduced electoral laws, which would essentially shift the focus of candidates to smaller districts, the hope was to get more response from the previously alienated people, many of whom took part in the protests.
Yet many protesters have continued to argue that a lack of systematic reform away from the largely inept and corrupt system means there is little hope for any real change to address the issues that are to this day still paralysing Iraq – a country that has only recently emerged out of almost two decades of violence and conflict, from the 2003 US-led invasion to the fight against the armed group ISIL (ISIS).
