'Losers' attempt to nullify election results: Zebari

A prominent Kurdish politician in Iraq warned on Friday of dire consequences if disputed results of recent national elections are voided by those who lost in the polls.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A prominent Kurdish politician warned on Friday of dire consequences if disputed results of recent national elections in Iraq are voided by those who lost in the polls.

Many of the parties who lost seats or got few votes have accused winning parties of tampering with votes, often blaming electronic devices used to automatically count the ballots.

Some parties submitted official complaints to Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), asking either for a manual recount of votes in areas where fraud has been charged or an entirely new election.

"[S]erious efforts with catastrophic consequences for#Iraq security& stability are underway to declare #IraqElections2018 null&void by LOSERS," read a post on the Twitter account of Hoshyar Zebari, who formerly served as Iraq's Finance Minister and, before that, Minister of Foreign Affairs for over a decade.

Zebari, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), a party that did well in the voting, elaborated further on his Facebook page, complaining of attempts to nullify the results by "some politicians and parliament members who lost in the elections."

“They must be stopped and be prevented from pushing the country into chaos."

His statements comes at a time that Baghdad's Parliament has scheduled an extraordinary session for Saturday afternoon regarding the transparency and integrity of the electoral process in which MPs are expected to discuss particular charges of voter fraud.

Most lawmakers from winning coalitions are expected to boycott the meeting, which would make it difficult to achieve a quorum necessary to hold an official parliamentary session.

The Iraqi Council of Ministers has also announced an investigation into possible election fraud.

On May 12, people across Iraq and the Kurdistan Region took part in national legislative elections, the first since the military defeat of the Islamic State (IS).

Turnout stood at 44.5 percent, according to IHEC. It is the lowest voter turnout rate in Iraq in the past 13 years. In the 2014 elections, roughly 60 percent of people showed up at the polls and cast their ballot.

Political analysts believe that the low turnout demonstrates a substantial lack of faith by Iraqi citizens in those who claim to represent them, amid common charges of empty promises, corruption, and failure to provide basic services and employment.

Editing by John J. Catherine