In partnership with the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Al-Bayan Center for Planning and Studies held a symposium to discuss early elections, options for participation and boycotts, and what the expected results of the elections would be next October.
The symposium, held on Saturday, June 26th, 2021, at the Center’s office in Baghdad, In the presence of Mahmoud Al-Rubaie a member of the Fatah Alliance and the spokesman of Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq “League of the Righteous” movement, and the member of the political bureau of the National House Party, Alaa Sattar Jabbar.
In his intervention during the symposium, Mahmoud Al-Rubaie said that “voters and candidates in elections do not feel secure enough in areas controlled by certain political forces,” citing the killing of a senior member of his party in Maysan province and Wissam Al-Alawi. Al-Rubaie added that the election law had been written in unstable conditions, noting that election security was imposed in two ways: one to intensify the presence of security forces and the other to increase the number of observers in effective ways. He also noted that the boycott’s decision in the elections would restore the same political forces as the 2018 elections.
Mahmoud Al-Rubaie called for the adoption of constitutional amendments that would transform the political system into a Presidential in which Iraqis would directly choose the President of the Republic.
For his part, Alaa Sattar put forward the vision of the October boycott forces for the elections, saying that “when the demonstrators calling for reform were killed in October to correct the democratic course in Iraq, and called for a fair early election, with secure conditions, the promises of political powers to create the right political and security climate, to reveal the murderers of the demonstrators, and to declare the fate of the absentees, in October’s demonstrations and earlier, but what has happened is that political powers have not heeded the will of the masses, the voices of their leaders and their conscious elites, and the current Government has been deceiving. As a result, there are still no safe conditions for demonstrators to enter the elections. “
“In such an insecure and unfair environment, we in the National House decided to boycott the elections and we call on all political forces emanating from October’s demonstrations to declare a total break with this political process, which has been proven by past bloody realities to be beyond reform.”
it is worth mentioning that Al-Bayan Center for Planning and Studies is an independent, nonprofit think tank based in Baghdad, Iraq. Its primary mission is to offer an authentic perspective on Iraq and Middle East issues.
VIDEO LINK: https://fb.watch/78TFfVfsQJ/
LINK: https://www.bayancenter.org/2021/06/7138
