Record Low Voter Turnout Mars Iraqi Parliamentary Elections

Baghdad, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 11th Oct, 2021 ) :Turnout hit a record low for parliamentary elections in war-scarred Iraq, early figures showed Monday, amid widespread disillusionment about a political elite seen as inept and corrupt.

Sunday's vote was moved forward from 2022 as a concession to an anti-government protest movement that has demanded deep reforms in the oil-rich yet poverty-stricken country.

But in the end voter participation hit a new low in Iraq's fifth election since the 2003 US-led invasion that ousted dictator Saddam Hussein with the promise of bringing freedom and democracy.

Preliminary turnout was just 41 percent, based on results from 94 percent of voting stations, the election commission said -- below the 44.5 percent recorded in 2018.

"There's general apathy.

People just don't believe that elections matter," said Iraqi researcher Sajad Jiyad of the Century Foundation think-tank.

"The weak turnout is a warning. It is not only the legitimacy of the next prime minister that is in question, but also the legitimacy of the government, of the state -- of the entire system." Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi brought forward the vote to appease a youth-led protest movement that erupted two years ago against graft, unemployment and crumbling public services.

Iraq is a major oil producer but nearly a third of its almost 40 million people live in poverty, according to UN figures, and the Covid pandemic only deepened a long-running crisis.

The premier and national spy chief tweeted that he had "kept his promise and done his duty by organising fair elections".