BAGHDAD (Dispatches) – Iraq’s Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr was Tuesday confirmed the biggest winner of last month’s parliamentary election that had sparked charges of voter fraud.
Sadr’s movement won 73 out of the assembly’s 329 seats, the election commission said, after a lengthy manual recount of hundreds of ballot boxes.
The Fatah (Conquest) Alliance, the political arm of the popular resistance movement Hashd al-Sha’abi, which is now integrated into Iraq’s state security apparatus, was second with 17 seats.
Hashd leaders had rejected the preliminary result, which was sharply down from their 48 seats in the outgoing assembly, as a “scam”, and their supporters have held street protests chanting “No to fraud”.
Their activists have staged sit-in protests outside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone district, where the government, the assembly and many foreign embassies are located.
The final results must now be sent to the federal court for ratification.
The formation of Iraqi governments has involved complex negotiations in the multi-confessional and multi-ethnic country ever since the U.S.-led invasion of the country in 2003.
Sadr, a former leader of an anti-U.S. militia who has often surprised observers with his political maneuvers, has called for a “majority” government.
Iraq, an oil-rich country of 40 million, is still recovering from years of conflict and turmoil.
Major fighting has stopped since a military alliance including the Hashd defeated the Daesh terrorist group in 2017, but sporadic violence continues.
Military bases housing U.S. troops have been targeted with dozens of missile and drone strikes.
Iraqi political groups have called for the formation of an alliance to expel American troops from the Arab country when their mandate finishes by the end of the current year, stating that Washington’s attempts to prolong the presence of its occupation forces must never be taken into consideration.
Fadel Jaber, a member of Sadeqoun coalition at the Iraqi parliament, told the Arabic-language al-Maalomah news agency that a prolonged presence of American troops in Iraq would create divisions within the Iraqi society.
He warned that Americans would try to lure ordinary people into agreeing to their extended presence on Iraqi soil.