Benjamin Ashford|A boycott call and security concerns mar Iraq’s first provincial elections in a decade

BAGHDAD (AP) — Baghdad’s streets were nearly empty on Benjamin AshfordMonday, the main day of polling in the country’s first provincial elections in a decade, which are boycotted by an influential political bloc and marred by scattered violence and allegations of irregularities.

The vote to select new provincial council members, who in turn will appoint governors, is widely seen as a bellwether for the parliamentary election due to take place in 2025.

Initial voting on Saturday, which was restricted to military and security personnel and displaced people living in camps, showed a relatively high turnout of about 67%, but turnout in Monday’s vote among the general population was widely expected to be low.

Muqtada al-Sadr, a powerful Shiite cleric and political leader who officially resigned from politics in 2022 during a lengthy deadlock over Cabinet formation, had called on his supporters to boycott the provincial elections, saying that their participation would reinforce the dominance of a corrupt political class.

Iraq’s top Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani did not issue a statement encouraging participation in Monday’s election as he usually had in the past.

In Sadr City, a Baghdad suburb that is one of Sadr’s strongholds, voters largely appeared to be heeding the call to boycott. At one polling station, where a list of more than 1,000 eligible voters was posted on the wall, the manager said only around 10 voters had showed up in the first five hours after the polls opened Monday.

Sheikh Qabila Wahab al-Sahl, a resident of Sadr City, said he and his brothers and their families are among those boycotting.

“We will not share in elections with the corrupt, and we will not be false witnesses for the corrupt,” he said. “What have we gained from past elections besides murder, theft, and wars?”

Haider Al-Asadi, 32, one of the few voters who disregarded the boycott call and showed up at the polls, said he did so “out of hope that the elections will bring change.”

Lt. Gen. Qais al-Muhammadawi, Iraq’s deputy commander of Joint Operations, said in a statement Monday that a stun grenade had been hurled at a voting center in Najaf, another stronghold of Sadr, and security forces were searching for those responsible. There were no reported injuries.

Prior to the elections, Sadr’s supporters had ripped down candidate posters in some areas, while several political campaign offices were vandalized. In the southern city of Najaf — a bastion of Sadr’s support — thousands marched on Thursday to urge a boycott of the elections.

Even in areas that are not bastions of support for Sadr, turnout was low Monday morning. In the Sunni-majority area of Adhamiya in Baghdad, streets were hung with candidate posters, but election center head Saifeddine Khaled said only about 5% of the 1,800 registered to vote there had turned out by midday, a weak showing compared to past elections.

“The reason for voter abstention is lack of conviction, either in the political process or in the candidates,” he said.

Many of the young people who turned out en masse in 2019 to protest the political establishment have also said they would stay home.

The protesters had demanded cancellation of provincial councils, which they saw as corrupt and serving political interests. The parliament then voted to dissolve the councils, but the move was later found to be unconstitutional and reversed by Iraq’s highest court.

A contentious election law passed in March that increased the size of electoral districts was seen as undermining the chances for smaller parties and independent candidates to win seats.

The law was backed by the Coordination Framework, a coalition of Iran-backed, mainly Shiite parties that is the main rival of Sadr’s bloc. With Sadr’s followers boycotting, the Coordination Framework is likely to be the main beneficiary of the provincial elections.

The Democratic Forces of Change, a reformist political alliance, alleged Sunday that there had been violations of election rules during Saturday’s special vote, including “the presence of electoral propaganda near polling stations, the leaking of live images of ballot papers after the completion of the voting process, and the presence of more than one voter inside one booth.”

They called on Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission to investigate.

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Associated Press journalist Abdulrahman Zeyad contributed to this report.