Reasons behind Iraq’s record low voter turnout are not all political, says chief EU observer

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The head of the European Union's European Union Election Observation Mission in Iraq (EU EOM) spoke to Kurdistan 24 this week about potential reasons that the Middle Eastern nation witnessed a record low voter turnout in Sunday's parliamentary elections with only 41 percent of its eligible voters casting ballots. 

For the first time, the EU mission was deployed to observe the Iraqi electoral process at the request of the country’s Independent High Electoral Mission (IHEC), which has recently announced the preliminary results favoring the coalition of influential cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

As the polls closed on Sunday evening, just above nine million of its over 25 million potential voters had participated.

Although the publically discussed reasons behind the phenomenon have generally been political in nature, EU official Viola von Cramon told Kurdistan 24 that "some groups in society were simply excluded such as people with disabilities that could not reach their polling stations," or would have trouble "walking five or six hundred meters to the polling stations." 

Recently, the EU EOM released its preliminary results of the process, which described it as "well-managed," despite "low turnout and a problematic legal framework."

Unregistered internally displaced persons (IDPs) could also not vote at their designated camps and were required instead to travel back to their places of origin which they typically fled because of unstable security, von Cramon added.

Additionally, she added, many Iraqis "did not find the right choice of candidates on the list or ballot papers."

Read More: Iraqi Election 2021: EU election observation mission releases its 'preliminary' results

The EU is set to publish its final report in around two months, it said recently.