Results in Iraqi provincial elections show low turnout and benefit established parties

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq’s first provincial elections in a decade saw a relatively low turnout and largely benefitted traditional parties, according to results announced Tuesday by the country’s election authorities.

The Independent High Electoral Commission said some 41% of registered voters turned out in Monday’s general voting and in special polling on Saturday for military and security personnel and internally displaced people living in camps. Out of 23 million eligible voters, only 16 million registered to cast ballots.

Turnout was particularly low in strongholds of the influential Shiite cleric and political leader Muqtada al-Sadr, who called his followers to boycott the election, describing the system as corrupt. Al-Sadr officially stepped down from politics in 2022 amid a lengthy standoff over government formation.

Young people who took to the streets en masse in 2019 to protest the political establishment also largely sat the polls out.

The province of Kirkuk, which has a mixed population of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen and has long been disputed territory between the central governments in Baghdad and the administration of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in the country’s north, saw the highest participation rate, reaching 66%, with Kurdish candidates winning the most seats.

In Baghdad, the coalition led by former Parliament Speaker Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi — a Sunni who was recently ousted by a Federal Supreme Court decision — took the highest number of votes, followed by a coalition of Iran-backed Shiite parties that is the main rival of al-Sadr’s bloc.

Despite fears of violence, the elections unfolded largely peacefully, with a few scattered incidents. In the al-Sadr bastion of Najaf, a stun grenade was hurled at a polling station without causing injuries.

Also on Monday, a helicopter transporting electoral materials crashed near Kirkuk due to bad weather conditions, killing the pilot and injuring the second officer.