At its last meeting on Wednesday, June 6, Iraqi parliament urged the Electoral Commission to count ballots manually throughout the country and decided to change the members of the Commissioners' Commission. The resolution broke out tensions between the victorious and losing parties and the crisis that arose after the announcement of the results. The bill constitutes a major victory for protesters of the election and accused victorious parties of rigging, but the end is not the case, as the political situation in Iraq and the victorious parties' approach, has increased the concern of political observers in this country of the possibility of exacerbating of the political crisis and security crisis is a danger.

Kurdpress news agency has talked to Zana Saeed Roustai over the parliamentary resolution to manually recount votes and changes in the members of the Electoral Commission's commissioners, what follows is his answers to Kurdpress questions:

How do you assess the parliamentary elections throughout the country and the change in the composition of the electoral commission?

Undoubtedly, the Iraqi House of Representatives resolved the great crisis that swept through this country. The crisis was created due to the announcement of election results and the protest to alleged fraud in the poll. Due to the political crisis, which was because of the announcement of the election results, the process of forming the new government was facing serious barriers. The purpose of the passage of the law by the parliament to manually recount votes throughout Iraq, was to build trust between political parties and eliminate the ambiguities and doubts surrounding the election. By doing so, the true and correct results of the election will be determined, and fraudsters will be held accountable by the judicial authorities. For these reasons, we, as representatives of the Islamic Community and other affiliated groups of opposition parties, see the decision of Iraqi representatives to evade crisis and solve the current tensions as a historic and important decision.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) as the parties which won parliamentary elections in Kurdistan Region, have boycott the meeting of the Iraqi parliament for studying and ratifying the bill to recount election results all over Iraq and have called the decision illegal, what do you think about the decision?

Any party that considers May 6, 2018 meeting of the in the Iraqi parliament and the ratification of the law of recounting electoral votes throughout Iraq and the change in commissioners as illegal can file a complaint against the moves in the Iraqi federal court.

Under the constitution and other domestic laws, the parliament can hold its meetings by the end of this month and pass laws in all fields. The meeting on Wednesday was held with the participation of 173 deputies which legitimizes the meeting. The holding of the meeting and the adoption of the law have also been based on the internal statute of the parliament, and no illegal acts are seen in this parliamentary act.

How likely is the implementation of this law feasible, and is there a barrier to its implementation?

After the passage of laws by the parliament, all institutions, including the state and the judiciary, must be committed and adhere to it, and they must come into force. If there is any protest to the rules, the protesters can protest and file a lawsuit in the federal court, but none of the issues can be a barrier to the enforcement of the law.

Given that much time that has passed since the initial counting of the votes and some of claim results have been manipulated, do you think the manual vote counting will make any dramatic change the election results, especially in the Kurdistan region, which your Islamic Community has protested to it?

Based on the information and statistics received that we have received from the Iraqi Supreme Electoral Commission and the results of the polling stations in the Kurdistan region, we are sure that large-scale changes will be made in results in the event of manual counting and we will revert a large part of our real votes, and any party and bloc that tries to manipulate the votes and lists, will be found guilty, because in Parliament's law it has been emphasized that no party will be able to change and manipulate the vote in its favor.

Iraq is now facing a worrying fact, and it is the existence of military forces or affiliates of major parties and victorious parties both at Kurdistan and national level. Will the parliament’s decision to manually recount votes and the probability of a serious change in the outcome not follow a hard reaction of these parties and are not you worried about the fact that the country faces a serious security crisis?

Iraqi law does not allow the participation of militant parties in the elections. Parties in the country should not have a military force. Military forces should be under the command and control of the Iraqi government. For this reason, the parties that made the most of frauds in the elections and used government institutions and military forces in the election have opposed the will of the people and the legitimate demands of the people. The implementation of the rule of censoring electoral votes throughout Iraq and changes in commissioners will cause serious concern for winner parties and blocs in the election and Iraq will face a serious crisis if they make a trouble for the implementation of the law.

How do you see the future of the new Iraqi government, given the recent approval of the parliament bill and the possibility of its implementation?

Undoubtedly, the formation of a new government will be postponed, and this will be a long postponement. Manual recounting will take at least 20 days and a maximum of one month, which will also delay the formation of the government. On the other hand, any change is likely in the number of seats of each coalition and party, and that is why we will see changes in the coalition between the winners.

Interview: Hasan Salehi

Reporter’s code: 50101