Iraqi VP, Turkmen praise Supreme Court rule to recount vote results

Iraq’s Vice-President Ayad Allawi on Thursday declared the Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council’s (ISJC) rule to manually recount the May 12 election results a “fatal blow” to entities who committed fraud.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iraq’s Vice-President Ayad Allawi on Thursday declared the Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council’s (ISJC) rule to manually recount the May 12 election results a “fatal blow” to entities who committed fraud.

ISJC announced early on Thursday that it had approved Parliament’s rule to recount the national votes manually, but rejected the law’s call to cancel ballots from early voters in the Kurdistan Region, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), and expats.

Allawi expressed his confidence in the “independent court” to “correct the [alleged] tampering experienced in the electoral process” either by way of “manual recounts” or considering the “mountains of evidence” of fraud.

Immediately after the election, the leader of the Al-Wataniya coalition and winner of 21 seats in the election, Allawi, called for the rejection of the election and an entirely new vote.

However, a week ago, sometime after his first statement, he proposed a less radical measure of a referendum for the people of Iraq to decide on the fate of the results.

Meanwhile, the Turkmen faction also welcomed the court decision. In a statement, the Turkmen described the move “a victory for the will of the Iraqi people” over the alleged “fraudulent election [in Iraq and] in Kirkuk especially.”

The Turkmen faction launched a protest after the election calling for a new vote, threatening “countrywide protest or violent action” if the Electoral Commission did not give into the entity’s demands.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany