Voting cards for Iraq's parliamentary elections. Photo: Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The alleged purchase of Sunni votes by armed groups affiliated with the Shiite-led Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi) in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province has raised concerns among Sunni candidates, who accuse these groups of attempting to undermine their electoral strength.
“Their aim is to reduce Mosul votes,” Mohammed Ghasoub, an analyst, told Rudaw, referring to the provincial capital. “This will lead to the failure of some patriotic figures.”
He accused the ruling Framework Coordination, a coalition of Shiite political parties, of trying to harm some Sunni figures by allegedly purchasing voting cards in Sunni-majority areas.
Muthana Fadhil, a resident of Mosul, told Rudaw that he was offered money in return for giving up his voting card.
Nineveh province is one of the most important electoral districts in every election, given its abundant diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds. Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis compete for 34 seats. In previous elections, Kurds and Sunnis had secured the majority of the seats, but this time it does not seem to be an easy task, as Shiite lists seek greater dominance and higher number of votes.
Nineveh has over 2,102,000 voters, making it the province with the largest number of voters after Baghdad.
According to the monitoring of the Rudaw Media Network's Elections Department, some political parties purchase and destroy the biometric voter cards of their rivals, making them invalid for voting, thus reducing the number of votes cast by their opponents.
In addition to attempts to buy people's votes, some political parties are making deals to buy votes among themselves in Nineveh, Vian Dakhil, an incumbent Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) lawmaker in Baghdad, recently told Rudaw, saying it sometimes occurs even among candidates on the same list.
"Voter cards are being traded in Nineveh for between 50,000 and 150,000 dinars, down from their initial price of 400,000 dinars," she claimed.
One US dollar is traded at 1,300 Iraqi dinars at the official rate.
Najim al-Jabouri is the former governor of the Sunni province of Nineveh. He is also running on the ticket of a Sunni list for the November 11 elections. He accuses the PMF of buying voting cards.
"This uncontrolled weapon isn't just in our province, but in our province they clearly use enticement and intimidation. Enticement with money like buying these cards and others I mentioned, and intimidation - they intimidate their groups, the simple people affiliated with the Popular Mobilization Forces - if you don't bring 20 or 15 cards, woe to you, meaning either transfer or contract termination," he told Rudaw on Monday.
The Independent High Electoral Commission's (IHEC) office in Nineveh said necessary measures have been taken against this phenomenon.
"There are investigative procedures until this moment. There will be legal procedures possible against the sellers, i.e., the voters - they might be removed from the voter registry and other legal procedures. As for the buying process or the money owners who bought with it, there will be greater penalties than this," Sufyan al-Mashhadan, head of the office's media department, said.
Iraq has arrested dozens of people accused of buying and selling voter cards, Hawkar Chato, coordinator of the Shams Election Monitoring Network, an election watchdog, told Rudaw last week.
Iraq will hold parliamentary elections on November 11.
Nwenar Fatih and Kawa Omar contributed to this article.
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