Minorities criticize the decision to cancel outside voting: we lost our right to vote

[size=52]Minorities criticize the decision to cancel outside voting: we lost our right to vote[/size]

[size=45]The election commission’s decision not to hold the polls outside Iraq sparked the discontent of the Iraqi communities, especially the minorities who see it as depriving them of a constitutional right.[/size]
[size=45]Journalist Othman Al-Mukhtar said, "Canceling the vote of Iraqis abroad is a constitutional violation, and the commission does not have the right to cancel the votes of thousands of Iraqis residing outside the country, as it harms different segments and components of society."[/size]
[size=45]He added that "Iraq after 2003 witnessed the immigration of most Christians abroad, and denying them the vote would harm them to choose who would represent them in the House of Representatives, especially in the mixed provinces where Christians do not constitute a population weight." Al-Mukhtar pointed out that "the failure to hold elections abroad came at the desire of some political forces, and this decision will harm the new civil blocs, since the majority of Iraqis abroad were determined to vote for it without the Islamic one."[/size]
[size=45]From Australia, journalist Milad Sami says, "The commission's decision to cancel our votes is an unfair decision, and it needs to be reconsidered, because canceling our voices means not even recognizing us as Iraqis."[/size]
[size=45]Sami, a Christian living outside the country, added, “What minorities suffered after 2003 prompted the majority of them to leave the country, and this time the government did not give them a chance to have representatives under the parliament, and this is a shameful matter for the commission and the government, and they must reverse this decision. It is a violation of the rights of minorities ”.[/size]
[size=45]In a tweet on the Twitter platform, the head of the Parliamentary Human Rights Committee, Arshad Al-Salihi, said, "The decision to cancel the elections abroad proved that the commission is unable to stand up to the challenges of some influential political blocs, and the inability to secure transparent elections."[/size]
[size=45]For its part, the spokeswoman for the Electoral Commission, Jumana Al-Ghalai, said, in press statements, that "the number of Iraqis abroad, who will not be able to participate in the elections despite their eligibility to vote, is estimated at about one million people."[/size]
[size=45]While legal expert Tariq Harb believes that the commission has “convincing reasons for canceling the votes of Iraqis abroad, including "The Iraqi embassies have apologized for holding the elections, and that the countries are tightening the procedures for the arrival of foreigners and the movement of residents due to the Corona epidemic, and that the funds that should have been allocated to conducting the elections abroad are enormous."[/size]
[size=45]He pointed out that "through previous experiences, the majority of fraud is in the elections abroad, and the reason is that the elections are conducted under the supervision of the director of the electoral station, and there is no supervision over them, whether it is international, governmental, or even civil society organizations." Harb explained, “The 2015 elections proved that foreign elections are inevitably vulnerable to fraud, after one of the electoral stations stated that there are 30,000 voter cards, while the real number was no more than 2,000 cards, and Iraqis abroad numbered nearly The two million people, and the number of those participating in the elections does not exceed 136,000 people, so its cancellation is reasonable. ” The Christian representative Saeb Khadr, a member of the legal committee in Parliament, recently told Al-Mada that, "Certainly, political parties will appeal the decision because it violates the law" that Parliament enacted last October.[/size]
[size=45]Article 39 / fourth of the election law states that "Iraqis abroad shall vote for their constituencies using the biometric card exclusively." Khadr believed that if the decision is appealed, "the commission will be obligated to hold elections abroad in any way," considering the cancellation of those elections as "stripping an Iraqi right guaranteed in the constitution to political participation."[/size]
[size=45]It was expected, according to Khadr, that the commission would apologize for holding the elections abroad. He added, "Before setting the date before the elections, which was in June, the commission said during its discussions with the legal committee that it would need a year to complete the biometric cards abroad."[/size]
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