A recently-concluded manual recount of Iraq’s May 12 parliamentary poll results have been referred to the country’s Supreme Court for ratification, an electoral official said Thursday.
Laith Hamza, a spokesman for Iraq’s official electoral commission, said the revised vote count had been sent to the court for approval after all appeals had been reviewed by judicial authorities.
Last week, the commission announced that the final results of the manual recount corresponded -- more or less -- to initial results released after the poll.
According to the recount, only one assembly seat -- initially won by the Baghdad Coalition -- moved to the Al-Fatih bloc, which is part of a Hashd al-Shaabi-led coalition.
For more than two months, results of Iraq’s hard-fought parliamentary poll had remained the subject of bitter dispute amid widespread allegations of vote fraud.
According to the results, Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Sairoon Coalition won 54 parliamentary seats, followed by the Hashd al-Shaabi-led coalition (47 seats) and Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's Victory Bloc (42 seats).
Once the Supreme Court approves the results of the vote recount, incoming lawmakers will hold a first assembly session to elect a new parliament speaker.
Within 30 days of that first session, the assembly will elect -- by a two-thirds majority -- the country’s next president.
The president will then task the largest bloc in parliament with forming a government, which must be referred back to parliament for approval.
