Iraq Cracks Down on Illegal Campaign Tactics

Election campaigns for Iraq’s federal parliamentary election officially began in the second week of April and will see 88 different electoral lists vie for 329 seats in parliament. With so many different political parties and electoral entities competing with one another – and given that many of these parties do not have clear policy platforms to separate themselves – many of them resort to bribing voters in order to earn their votes.

Outside personality politics of party leaders, one tactic that has been used over the past decade in Iraq’s nascent democracy is illegally buying votes. This was first seen with little incentives such as handing out phone cards when mobile phones first entered the Iraqi market after 2003. This tactic slowly evolved to handing out larger household appliances and later on turned to land handouts and guaranteed public service employment. Because those corrupt parties and candidates focus on vulnerable, low income areas, thousands of Iraq’s poorest voters end up falling for these material gifts out of desperation or ignorance.

Iraqi media outlets reported on this practice last election in 2014 and accusations were leveled at several prominent politicians. For instance, in March 2014, one month before the election, Iraqi media reported that MP Hannan al-Fatlawi was giving five million IQD (roughly $4,300 at the time) to local leaders to gather her the votes of people in their neighborhoods. Fatlawi was also accused of receiving 5,000 job positions from the Defence Ministry, so she could hand them out to potential voters in her province of Babil. She ended up winning 90,000 votes, one of the highest in the country. But Fatlawi is not a unique case, similar accusations have been made against dozens of candidates.

As we near election day, the Iraqi government is attempting to clamp down on these illegal campaign tactics. Last month, Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi called for the investigation of current members of parliament making fake job offers for votes in May. Abadi not only called for an investigation into the practice but also warned Iraqis that the federal budget passed has no room for public service hiring. Therefore, such promises coming from MPs are blatantly false.

Serious allegations have been made over the last few months of old voting cards being purchased in large amounts by political blocs in provinces such as Anbar and Diyala with the intention of using them to bolster their vote tallies via vote-rigging. The dire situation of internally displaced people is regularly exploited for this purpose, with political operatives scouring IDP camps for people willing to sell their old voting cards for little amounts of money.

The Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) has also faced a recent wave of pressure from various political factions to not use their new electronic voting system and revert back to a manual counting system. So far, IHEC officials have resisted scrapping the new system, citing the ease with which the manual system can be manipulated and influenced.

Last week, the Council of Ministers ensured the sale of state-owned land and properties are on hold until after the election date and backdates any sale made from the start of 2018. This ensures that land and property cannot be sold to citizens for votes. Like the public service employment claims, this ensures that any candidate or party offering land or property for little to nothing to citizens in exchange for votes is not only doing so illegally but also doing so under false pretences. This was also notoriously seen in the previous federal election where the State of Law coalition was accused of handing out land to families for votes. State of Law won the most seats with 92 in total. Afterwards, many claimed the promise of land was never fulfilled or that many who received land could not afford to build on it, deeming it useless.

Ending these illegal tactics during this election is important to tackle in order to ensure that Iraq’s democracy continues to mature correctly and improve the integrity of future Iraqi elections. Having said that, returning to older tactics of handing out household appliances, calling cards or straight up cash is still likely to happen. It will be a difficult task for IHEC and Iraqi police to prevent such practices from getting out of hand from now until May 12.

Preventing bigger and more established political parties and coalitions from buying votes will help keep the elections clean and benefit the smaller parties on election day. Furthermore, it will ensure that real achievements such as the victory against ISIS, the unity of Iraq, the reassertion of federal authority over disputed areas and reforming the economy are not minimized or rendered insignificant during the election because of petty gift distribution. This is Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi’s way of ensuring this election is about ideas and platforms and not about land, sect or ethnicity.