SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Iraq’s electoral commission said it would fine people who intend to vote on behalf of another person or try to vote twice in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
The Iraqi independent high electoral commission said anybody who is caught voting twice or votes twice in the October elections would be fined between $200 and $900 and will be imprisoned for six months.
“Among the measures that will be taken is legal penalties against anybody who deliberately votes on behalf of another or whose name is repeated in the polling day,” IHEC spokesperson Jumana al-Ghalay said on Sunday.
Iraq is scheduled to hold early elections on October 10, in response to the anti-government protests against corruption and lack of public services.
The previous parliamentary elections in Iraq were held on May 12, 2018, and the next elections were originally scheduled to take place in 2022.
Last month, head of IHEC commissioners’ council judge Jaleel Adnan Khalaf said he had invited more than 75 countries and international organizations to observe the elections, according to al-Monitor.
Member of IHEC media office Imad Jamil Mohsen said up to 150 U.N. observers and more than 70 EU spectators would monitor the elections in Iraq.
In May, the U.N. Security Council unanimously authorized U.N. Envoy Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert to provide “a strengthened, robust and visible U.N. team, with additional staff, in advance of Iraq’s forthcoming election, to monitor Iraq’s election day with as broad a geographic coverage as possible”.
According to the resolution, UNAMI should “engage, encourage, and coordinate with, and provide, as appropriate, logistical and security support to international and regional third-party observers invited by the government of Iraq.”
