ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s electoral commission will finish investigating complaints filed regarding the October 10 parliamentary elections by Monday, state media reported. The Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) received over a thousand appeals and two-thirds of them have already been investigated, a member of the commission’s media team Imad Jamil told state media on Saturday. “We will complete looking into the total number within two days,” he added. The IHEC last week announced the final preliminary results in the parliamentary election following the manual count of polling stations that were not electronically counted due to technical issues. It also gave parties the option to file complaints about the updated results. Tuesday was the last day to submit complaints. Most of the complaints are being rejected. Of 340 assessed on Saturday, IHEC said 322 were rejected for “lack of evidence” or detail. Eighteen appeals distributed over Salahaddin, Basra and Baghdad will be looked into, it added. The commission has ordered recounts of votes from some polling stations in relation to a handful of complaints. Iraqis voted in an early election on October 10. The preliminary results handed out victories to the Sadrist movement, Taqadum, Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), and the State of Law Coalition. Iran-backed parties affiliated with the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi in Arabic) such as the Fatih Alliance did not do as well as expected. They have alleged fraud and supporters are staging a sit-in in Baghdad.
