Huqooq and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq gear up for a popular demonstration against the election results

Huqooq (Rights) movement and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq movement lambasted the poll’s results announced by the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), warning of escalation if it insists to refrain from the manual recount.

In a joint press conference with Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq leader Hasan Salim, the head of the Huqooq movement, Hussein Mowanes, said that his movement employed 20,000 observers in the ballot centers and obtained 60% of the general polls registers.

“IHEC’s merger announcement of the results differs from all the data we obtained. It looks more like the sixth-grade results when the website glitches because of the traffic or the updates.”

“The midday data we have asserted that twelve of our candidates won and qualifies six other candidates to win,” he added.

“According to 60% of the electoral registers, the results of our candidates were as follows: In Basra, our candidate Mudrek al-Halfi from the third constituency won 3,590 votes; Nadia al-Aboudi from the fifth constituency: 3,648 votes; Majda Abdul-Ilah from the fourth constituency: 2393 votes, and Mohsen Sha’o from the fifth constituency: 5,398 votes.”

He continued, “From the third constituency in Maysan, our candidate Ali Haidar secured 4,093 votes. In the third constituency in Karbala, our candidate Wasan al-Mashhadani won 1,200 votes; and in Karbala, our candidate Jabbar Jaaz also won 5,000 votes.”

For his part, Salim asserted that the votes on the registers of all the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were higher than what IHEC announced.

“We give IHEC some time to reconsider and hold the accountability for the tension it caused to the Iraqi street. It must recount the ballots manually to reveal the truth and redress those whose ballots were stolen.”

“Many violations happened, and IHEC was impervious. It was not impartial, and it worked against some candidates in favor of others,” Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq candidate said.

Pro-Iranian parties and armed groups have denounced early results from Iraq’s elections as “manipulation” and a “scam”.

Sunday’s parliamentary election – the fifth in the war-scarred country since the US-led invasion and overthrow of ruler Saddam Hussein in 2003 – was marked by a record low turnout of 41 percent.

According to preliminary results from the electoral commission, the biggest winner appeared to be the movement of the religious scholar and political maverick Muqtada al-Sadr, which increased its share to 73 of the assembly’s 329 seats.

Losses were booked by pro-Iranian parties with links to the armed groups that make up the fighter network known as Hashed al-Shaabi, or Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF).

The Fateh Alliance, previously the second-largest bloc in parliament, suffered a sharp decline from 48 to about a dozen seats, according to observers and results compiled by AFP.

“We will appeal against the results and we reject them,” said a joint statement by several parties, including the Fateh Alliance, on Tuesday.

“We will take all available measures to prevent the manipulation of votes,” added the statement also signed by the party of former Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who served from 2014 to 2018.

Hadi al-Amiri, one of the most powerful figures in Iraq, said the results were “fabricated”, according to the Alghadeer Channel.

“We will not accept these fabricated results, whatever the cost,” the channel cited him as saying on Tuesday on Alghadeer Telegram’s messaging account.

The European Union observer mission said it saw the low voter turnout as a “clear political signal”, hoping that it would be “heard by the political elite”.