01 Dec 2021; MEMO: The manual recount of contested ballot boxes in Iraq's parliamentary elections held in October have only affected five seats in five provinces, Iraq's Independent High Elections Commission (IHEC) said yesterday.
"We'd like to underline here that the commission has been committed in dealing with the results according to the law and in line with the will of the Iraqi people," Chairman of IHEC Board of Commissioners, Judge Jalil Adnan Khalaf, said in a televised speech.
The five governorates are Nineveh, Erbil, Kirkuk, Basra and Baghdad.
Judge Adnan said out of 22 million people eligible to vote; only 9.6 million actually did so.
With the new results, the Sadrist movement remains in the lead with 73 seats out of 329, followed by Sunni Parliament Speaker Mohammed Al-Halbousi's Taqadum group with 37 seats and former prime minister Nouri Al Maliki's State of Law bloc was third with 33 seats.
The results announced yesterday will be sent to the Supreme Federal Court for ratification today.
The initial results faced widespread objections from influential Shia factions who lost many of their seats.
