On Iraqi social media, charts showing the results of the parliamentary elections that took place on April 30 have gone viral. The results are even being circulated by some news agencies and television channels. The Facebook pages of the members of political blocs and parties that participated in the elections are also rushing to post the results.
The members of the State of Law Coalition, led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, have been making more of these early announcements through their media statements than others. However, the figures announced by the politicians have mostly seemed inaccurate.
The media officer of the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), Aziz al-Khaikani, told Al-Monitor, “The figures circulated by the media and posted on social networks about the victory of one entity or the other are mere predictions, and the IHEC has nothing to do with them.” Khaikani added, “The announced results are merely the political blocs’ own judgment.”
He also called on the political entities to wait for the official results of the elections, which the commission will announce in an official statement at the end of May or early June.
Al-Monitor spoke with State of Law Coalition candidate Saad al-Matlabi about this issue. “It is wrong for the political blocs to announce the results and the number of seats they got in advance, because that would embarrass them in front of their supporters in case their figures and the commission’s final figures did not match,” he said.
“Some members of the State of Law Coalition are disclosing results based on the nature of the electoral inclinations or on a sample of the results of some polling centers on election day,” Matlabi said. “We received the available figures from the observers of the State of Law Coalition that are distributed over all Iraqi regions.”
However, Khaikani said, “The blocs must not rely on their delegates in the vote count centers to evaluate their victory.”
Writer and political analyst Safaa Khalaf said that declaring the election results early is “a game to confuse the supporters, provoke the other blocs and confuse the IHEC as well, so that it gives close figures that spare the other blocs a blatant loss.”
Khalaf told Al-Monitor: “The obvious game is to doubt the integrity of the vote counting process and the results, so that the loss turns into an electoral pretext that guarantees pressure to obtain gains [positions and appointments] and keep earning public support out of 'unjust treatment.'”
Source/Fuente: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/05/iraq-political-blocs-leak-election-results.html#ixzz320isaqQl
