SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The Iraqi electoral commission said on Wednesday it would announce final results for the general election after 20 days.
“The initial results could be changed. Therefore, the final results will be announced after 20 days,” spokesperson for Iraq’s electoral commission Jumana al-Ghalay said, according to Iraqi media.
The independent high electoral commission has begun receiving complaints from the parties, she added.
Her comments come as the independent high electoral commission has started manual counting of dozens of ballot boxes in an effort to compare it to votes from the voting machine.
Iraq held early parliamentary election on Sunday. Voter turnout was 41%, a record low in the post-Saddam Hussein era signaling widespread distrust of the country’s leaders and the vote for a new parliament. That’s down from 44% in the 2018 elections, which was an all-time low.
Shia Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s party was the biggest winner in the election, increasing the number of seats he holds in parliament.
However, manual counting has changed the number of seats of the blocs, according to the IHEC’s data.
According to the data sent to Esta Media Network, the number of seats that the Sadrist movement led by Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr won in the election dropped from 73 to 70, while seats of blocs affiliated to Hashid al-Shaabi increased.
Al-Fateh seats also increased from 17 to 21, and seats of a coalition formed by Ammar Hakim and Abadi rose by one seat to five.
IHEC chairman judge Jalil Adnan said in Baghdad on Tuesday that there were still 3,177 outstanding ballot boxes that were not included in the initial results and would be manually counted.
The boxes will be counted at the IHEC National Center in the presence of international observers and the media.
They are estimated to contain about 60,000 votes in total, according to the National News.
