{"id":12044,"date":"2018-08-19T13:23:39","date_gmt":"2018-08-19T13:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=12044"},"modified":"2018-08-19T13:23:39","modified_gmt":"2018-08-19T13:23:39","slug":"iraq-supreme-court-ratifies-result-of-may-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=12044","title":{"rendered":"Iraq Supreme Court ratifies result of May vote"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"body-200771816342556199\" readability=\"110.752136752\">\n<p class=\"speakable\">Iraq&#8217;s Supreme Court has ratified the results of the May 12 parliamentary election, its spokesman said, setting in motion a 90-day constitutional deadline for the winning parties to form a government.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">&#8220;The court has issued a decision to ratify the results of the parliamentary election,&#8221; the spokesman said in a statement on Sunday.<\/p>\n<div data-embed-type=\"Brightcove\" data-embed-id=\"5820840927001\">\n<table class=\"in-article-item video\" border=\"0\">\n<tbody readability=\"1\">\n<tr>\n<td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr readability=\"3\">\n<td readability=\"5\">\n<p>Iraq: Manual recount shows few changes to May election results<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p>A nationwide recount of votes showed on August 10 that populist Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr retained his lead, positioning him to play a central role in forming the country&#8217;s next government.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Many Iraqis, including Kurdish and Sunni Arab groups, disputed the results of the vote, alleging widespread electoral misconduct.<\/p>\n<p>In June, a huge fire destroyed a warehouse housing boxes containing ballots from the May vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Iraqi officials, including its prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, <a class=\"InternalLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rferl.org\/a\/fire-hits-baghdad-ballot-box-storage-site\/29282406.html\" target=\"_blank\">said that the fire was started deliberately<\/a>\u00a0with the aim of harming Iraqi democracy.<\/p>\n<p>The fire came just days after parliamentarians <a class=\"InternalLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2018\/06\/iraq-orders-recount-11-million-votes-12-election-180606163950024.html\" target=\"_blank\">ordered a recount<\/a> of all 11 million of the votes cast.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>MPs also sacked the nine-member independent electoral commission that oversaw the process and replaced the body with judges.<\/p>\n<p>The recount did not change the number of seats Sadr&#8217;s bloc won. According to the commission, only one seat from Iraq&#8217;s Baghdad Coalition had moved to the Al-Fatih Bloc, which is part of a Hashd al-Shabi-led coalition, giving the latter 48 instead of 47 assembly seats.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>After the initial result, Sadr and Abadi formed an alliance in the aftermath of the vote, in which the former&#8217;s\u00a0Sairoon Alliance won 54 seats to become the largest bloc in Iraq&#8217;s 329-seat parliament.<\/p>\n<p>Abadi&#8217;s alliance &#8211; once seen as a frontrunner &#8211; came in third, with just 42 seats.<\/p>\n<p>Incoming MPs will now hold a first session to elect a new assembly speaker.\u00a0Within 30 days of that first session, the assembly will elect- by a two-thirds majority- the country&#8217;s next president.<\/p>\n<p>The president will then task the largest bloc in parliament with drawing up a government, which must be referred back to parliament for approval.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Iraq&#8217;s Supreme Court has ratified the results of the May 12 parliamentary election, its spokesman said, setting in motion a 90-day constitutional deadline for the winning parties to form a government. &#8220;The court has issued a decision to ratify the results of the parliamentary election,&#8221; the spokesman said in a statement on Sunday. Iraq: Manual&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":12045,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}