Iraq’s October Election Faces Boycotts Over Corruption, Security Woes

Iraq is facing an important election in October, but the legitimacy of that election could be in question with parties pulling out over concerns about the process. Iraq’s Communist Party is the latest to pull out, and while not a huge party they did win 13 seats last time around.

The same can’t be said of Sairoon, the bloc of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, which won 54 seats, the most of any party. The Sadrists are hugely important, and also recently announced they are pulling out.

The Communists are complaining about security, while Sadrists are worried the corruption isn’t being tackled. With allegations of fraud all over the 2018 vote, the fear is that the needed changes haven’t been made for this time around.

Without offering reforms and getting those parties back, the risk is that whoever wins the vote is going to be facing intense criticism from the Sadrists, already a faction that makes a lot of waves about corruption, with the added credibility of having boycotted the vote.