CF convenes to discuss key issues, including election law

Shafaq News / The Coordination Framework is expected to hold a meeting today to discuss key issues, including election and budget laws.

The meeting will be held at the house of a CF leader, Hamam Hamoudi, a source revealed.

Earlier today, prominent activist Dhurgam Majid, revealed that the Central Committee for Popular Protest has agreed to escalate the protests against the new election law based on the Sainte-Lague system.

On February 13, the Council of Representatives held the first reading of the proposed third amendment to the Law on the Elections of Provincial Councils and Districts No. 12 of 2018, which was submitted by the Legal and Regions and Non-Governorate Provinces Committees.

A statement by the Council explained that the amendment was made to implement the decisions of the Federal Court numbers 43/federal/2021, 159/federal/2021, and 103/federal/2019, and "for the purpose of conducting free, fair, and impartial elections for the Iraqi Council of Representatives and the non-governorate Provincial Councils, raising their level, and engaging all segments of society," according to the statement.

The modified Sainte-Lague system was adopted for the distribution of parliamentary seats in Iraq, after the Council of Representatives voted in favor of distributing seats among competing lists under the Iraqi election law on November 4, 2013.

The Sainte-Lague system is a formula created in 1912 by the French mathematician Andre Sainte-Lague, and its purpose is to distribute votes for parliamentary seats in multi-seat constituencies, reducing the distortion caused by the lack of proportionality between votes and seats obtained.

This distortion favors large parties over smaller ones, whereas the modified Sainte-Lague system aims to distribute seats more fairly.