The Iraqi parliament has urged an investigation into allegations of vote fraud in this month’s general election, passing a resolution seeking a partial recount. The non-binding resolution seeks to cancel ballots cast from overseas and within displacement camps inside the country and would require 10 per cent of all votes to be manually recounted. If cheating were discovered it could lead to a recount of all ballots nationwide. The move by MPs follows protests over alleged vote rigging on May 12. The proposed recount would be compared to electronic tallies, to address concerns that electronic voting machines had been hacked. “In case of discovery of fraud, then a recount would be carried out for all votes across the country,” Abdel Malik Al Husseini, spokesman for the speaker of parliament, told The National.
Parliament held the emergency session on Monday night to pass measures aimed at restoring confidence in the elections, Mr Al Husseini said.
With 168 of parliament’s 328 MPs present, the resolution sought to “annul diaspora votes and votes that were conducted in displaced camps in Anbar, Salahuddin and Diyala provinces.”
The resolution does not compel Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) to take action however, as parliament does not have authority to issue it specific instructions.
Full Article: Iraq MPs demand partial recount of election results – The National.
