By Ali Jawad
BAGHDAD (AA) – Iraq’s official electoral commission plans to lodge an appeal against an earlier decision by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to suspend its activities due to fraud allegations.
“The decision [to suspend the commission’s activities] is a violation of the principle of the separation of powers,” the commission said in a Wednesday statement, asserting that it was only subject to the authority of parliament — not of the government — according to Iraq’s constitution.
Late Tuesday, Iraq’s Council of Ministers announced its decision to maintain the suspension of the commission’s work until fraud allegations related to May 12 parliamentary polls could be fully investigated.
In its Wednesday statement, the commission called on the presidency, lawmakers and political powers to “prevent undue interference” in its activities.
Early last month, parliament appointed nine judges to run the commission following numerous allegations of fraud related to the May 12 election.
A subsequent manual vote recount, however, reached the same outcome as the initial poll result, with the exception of a single parliamentary seat.
On Monday, government officials announced that the country’s newly-elected parliament would convene its first session on Sept. 3.
According to the constitution, the assembly will then have 30 days to elect — by a two-thirds majority — the country’s next president.
The new president will then task the largest bloc in parliament with drawing up a government, which then must be referred back to parliament for approval.
