Iraq will hold provincial council elections on December 18, the first of their kind since 2013. The councils, created by the 2005 Iraqi constitution following the fall of Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein, are bodies that hold significant power in the country, including setting the budgets for several sectors such as education, health, and transport.
“The government rejects the blackmailing of citizens on the issue of social welfare in exchange for granting them a voter card,” the senior source said, adding that the government will follow up on complaints of fraud to ensure fair elections.
The provincial councils were dissolved in 2019, in response to demands by the Tishreen (October) protesters who criticized the system for its failures and for enabling corruption.
“The government calls on citizens who are subjected to cases of blackmail in exchange for being granted a voter card to report them,” the source said.
On Tuesday, an Iraqi MP told Rudaw that Iraqi political blocs have been purchasing voter cards at a price of 75,000-100,000 Iraqi dinars per card.
“The matter is shameful and contrary to all customs and laws, and these political blocs that buy electoral cards are going through a stage of bankruptcy so they are doing this to compensate for their losses,” Salah al-Tamimi told Rudaw’s Mushtaq Ramadhan.
Rampant corruption plagues all levels of the Iraqi state. The country ranks as the joint tenth most corrupt nation in the world according to the Transparency International annual corruption perceptions index.
Since assuming the Iraqi premiership in October, Sudani has frequently reiterated his cabinet’s commitment to battling the endemic corruption that plagues the Iraqi state, and has not shied away from sacking numerous officials in high-level positions.
The provincial council elections will be held across the provinces of federal Iraq and will exclude the Kurdistan Region.
