Status: 10.10.2021 9:30 p.m.
A new parliament is being elected in Iraq, but many people see no point in voting. You see a country that is sinking into corruption and violence.
The woman in the traditional black chador comes out of the voting booth and says: “God willing, we will get justice now. A new beginning for Iraq. Everything will get better, God willing.”
An older man also hopes that this election will become the cornerstone of a new Iraq: “We want to change our country for the better, rebuild it. We need jobs. We have to fight corruption. We want a safe country, a stable country.” He says and shoves his ballot into the electronic counting machine.
Fear of even more corruption and armed gangs
There was not much to count today. Most Iraqis did not vote. They fear that even after this election Iraq will sink into corruption, armed militias will fight for influence and make everyday life unsafe.
The leaders of the ethnic groups will divide power among themselves and at the same time watch each other with suspicion. Shiite parties are likely to achieve the greatest success again, since the Shiites make up the majority in Iraq.
Independent candidates want to go to parliament
Ali Hassan Abd-Radhi from the southern Iraqi city of Nasariya says that ministries in Iraq are organized like the mafia. The mighty enrich themselves, nothing is left for the people. Ali Hassan wants to change that. He stood for election as an independent candidate:
If I am elected to parliament, there is not much I can achieve as an individual independent. But I hope that independents will be elected from all parts of the country, in Basra, in Baghdad, in Kurdistan. When we’re 20, 30 independents, we’ll be able to change something.
Ali Hassan sees himself as part of the young protest movement that took to the streets two years ago against corruption and the influence of armed militias. The protests had been bloodily suppressed at the time. There were several hundred dead.
Death threats against the family
Most of the activists in the protest movement therefore called for a boycott of the election. Others, however, want to bring the protest into parliament as a member of parliament, like Ali Hassan, who had taken his family to a safe place because of all the death threats during the election campaign.
Three or four times strangers drove a motorcycle past his house and filmed it. “I received threats on Facebook. They sent me a photo of my eleven-year-old daughter along with a photo of a pistol, all anonymously of course.”
250,000 security guards protect the election
The election went without any major incident. 250,000 police officers and soldiers took care of that. Many streets were blocked with concrete barricades for fear of attacks. Whoever wanted to vote had to pass several barriers and be scanned.
Defense Ministry Tahsin al-Khafiji said, “Air Force planes will fly the ballot boxes to the secured counting centers. The elections will be uneventful until the counting. We take immediate action if an incident occurs. We will such incidents do not allow so that there is no pressure on the polling stations or on the voters. “
So now the votes will be counted – the results should be available on Monday.