IHEC announces key developments ahead of provincial council elections

Shafaq News / In a manner akin to international agencies, the Board of Commissioners at the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) announced a comprehensive statistical report on political alliances and 'updated' voters' data on Sunday.

The announcement came with the intention of conducting a trial simulation in September to prepare for the upcoming elections of provincial councils scheduled for December 2023.

According to a statement, the President of the Board of Commissioners and members of the IHEC held regular and extraordinary sessions on August 6 and 8, 2023. During these sessions, they endorsed the establishment of 26 political alliances and granted conditional licenses to two political parties.

Additionally, they ratified the guidelines for the maximum campaign expenditure for the provincial council elections in Governorates not Organized in Region for the year 2023, as prepared by the legal committee under the chairmanship of Deputy Chairman of the Board of Commissioners Judge Fayyadh Yaseen Hussain and the membership of Board of Commissioners members Judge Amer Moussa al-Husseini and Dr. Adviser Fatah Mohammed Hussain, and legal experts, in the presence of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) international team.

According to the statement, the participants discussed 'Letter of the Presidency of the Kurdistan Region' dated August 3, 2023, number (909), in which the Council decided to instruct the electoral administration to prepare an operational schedule for the Kurdistan Parliament elections, which is scheduled to take place as per the Regional Decree on February 25, 2024.

Furthermore, the Board of Commissioners endorsed the recommendations of the operational committee, which included a mechanism to ensure the rights of voters in the biometric registration and update process, along with the distribution of biometric voter cards.

Among the exceptional decisions made on August 8, the Board of Commissioners allowed for changing the data of a wife or children with their husband's registration (family reunification) from one governorate to another after verifying their information in a special program of the Commission's work and providing documents that prove the relationship with the head of the family, for all governorates covered by the elections of provincial councils in the region except for Kirkuk, pending the completion of the voter registry audit committee in Kirkuk.

As part of the preparations for the upcoming provincial council elections, the Board of Commissioners formed special technical committees to examine several aspects including polling centers, stations and inks, the monitoring and camera system, the ballot paper and sensitive forms, and the examination of biometric voter cards. These committees will be chaired by members of the Board of Commissioners, per the resolution of the Board of Commissioners at its extraordinary session on August 9, 2023.

The statement noted that the Chairman of the Board of Commissioners, Judge Omar Ahmed Mohammed, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Shams Network for Election Monitoring, recognizing its important role in ensuring the integrity and transparency of the electoral process. This includes raising voter awareness and educating them about the importance of participating in the elections. With the conclusion of the registration period for political alliances on August 7, 2023, the effort resulted in the registration of 296 political parties since the establishment of the Department of Party Affairs and Political Organizations in 2015. Additionally, there were 63 political parties in the registration process for founding, along with 50 political alliances, 17 of which expressed their desire to continue, as per the statement.

The Commission announced its intention to conduct the first trial simulations for general and special voting, scheduled for September 2, 2023, at one station in the offices of all electoral governorates, including the Kurdistan Region, as well as one station in each registration center in the 15 governorates involved in the local elections, totaling 906 centers.

This aims to verify the verification, counting, sorting, and updating processes. The work will be conducted by specialized employees of the simulation committee in the presence of the UNAMI and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES).

On the technical side, with the conclusion of the voter registration update period that commenced on July 9 and lasted until August 12, 2023, in 1079 registration centers spread throughout Iraq’s governorates, districts, and sub-districts, the number of updated voters with biometric data reached 871,502 voters for general voting and 1,729 for special voting.