Iraqi cleric Sadr’s party says they dominate Iraq polls

By Ibrahim Saleh
BAGHDAD (AA) – Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s party said Monday it has won 80 seats in this weekend’s early parliamentary elections.

“The Sadrist Movement has emerged the biggest parliamentary bloc,” Ibrahim al-Jabri, the head of Sadr’s office in Baghdad, told the local Rudaw media network.

The Iraqi election commission has not yet released any official results from Sunday’s vote.

The Sadrist Movement seeks to secure enough seats in the 329-member parliament to form a government.

In the 2018 parliamentary elections, Sadr-backed Sairoon alliance won 54 seats in parliament.

Sunday’s elections saw 3,249 candidates representing 21 coalitions and 109 parties vying for seats in the assembly.

The polls saw a low turnout of only 41%, according to the election commission.

The polls were originally scheduled for 2022 but political parties decided to hold early elections following mass protests that erupted in 2019 against deep-seated corruption and poor services.

The vote was the fifth in Iraq since 2003 when a US-led invasion overthrew the regime of former President Saddam Hussein.

Writing by Ahmed Asmar in Ankara