Iraqi election day to end at 6 p.m., nearly 33% cast their ballots

The Chairman of the IHEC’s Board of Commissioners, Judge Jalil Adnan, announced the participation rate in the public polling that started this Sunday morning.

Jalil said, “The participation rate until midday is more than a third of the voters.”

He added, “There is no malfunction in the voting devices. When the ballot boxes were opened, all the devices were working.”

For its part, the Iraqi Independent Electoral Commission commented on the possibility of extending voting if the rate is low or because of some problems in the voting devices in some electoral centers.

The Commission’s spokesperson Joumana al-Ghalay said “There is absolutely no extension for the general poll, which is currently taking place, for any reason.”

She added, “the voting devices will be closed at 0600 p.m. automatically.”

Iraqis started on Sunday voting in a general election, their fifth legislative elections since the fall of the regime of late President Saddam Hussein at the hands of US forces and their allies in 2003.

Several months early, the election was held under a new law designed to help independent candidates – a response to mass anti-government protests two years ago.

Polling stations scattered across the country opened their doors at 7:00 local time to voters amid international supervision and strict security measures, as 23 million voters are eligible to vote to select 329 candidates for the parliamentary session, in which 57,834 polling stations were included.

The President of the Kurdistan Region, Nechirvan Barzani in Erbil, and the Iraqi Prime Minister, Mustafa Al-Kadhimi in Baghdad, were the first to vote.

Last Friday, 821,800 out of 1196524 voters (69%) of Soldiers, prisoners, and displaced people voted in special early polls in Iraq.