Iraq’s general election: What to expect from the vote • FRANCE 24 English

Iraq’s general election: What to expect from the vote • FRANCE 24 English

Well, let’s get some analysis now. France 24’s international affairs editor, Philip T is with me. Good to see you, Phillip. Just lay out for us how today’s vote is taking place and what the main challenges are. Right. Well, first of all, as we’ve been seeing in that report, uh it’s not easy. Uh the outgoing prime minister uh al-Sadani Mahame alsani is not guaranteed a second term, although he may well come top in the vote. So there may be a very long process afterwards with discussions going on between uh Shia Sunni and uh um Kurd representatives in the government to try to see who they would agree on as a future candidate for prime minister. So there are challenges right the way down the line and one of the biggest challenges I think facing uh the candidates in Iraq is the fact that many young people in the country are disillusioned with politics. They just see the same old faces are coming along every time. They say that nothing is really changing in Iraq and that is why we’ve seen this low turnout. There was low turnout pretty much this morning from first reports on the AFP newswires. Uh and I think there’s a lot of concern that it could be even lower than the 41% that we saw in the last elections in 2021. So uh it’s by no means a foregone conclusion that Muhammad Shar al-Sadani will be the next prime minister of Iraq. Uh and whoever it is who’s going to take over the country will have a lot of very important decisions to make and a number of uh challenges which they will have to take on. Well, Philip, you hinted there that there is expected not to be a very high uh turnout. Why are voters in Iraq so disillusioned? Right. Well, um I think that uh one of the main reasons is that they don’t see anything progressing very quickly in the country. Uh there is also uh a feeling that maybe there is too much uh of uh the fact that many of the leaders are not spending the money they should on the infrastructure of Iraq. If you look at parliamentary finances, there’s been a 60% fall in the investment in local government, which means that basically schools and hospitals and the infrastructure in areas outside of Baghdad uh are sorely lacking in investment. uh that has gone down a lot since the last elections whereas that money has been kept uh by the federal government in Baghdad where they’ve been building uh bridges and uh better buildings in the city and that has led to a a breakdown I think in in the trust a greater breakdown in the trust between uh younger people and the ruling elites in Iraq. Uh and there is another reason and that is that young people are keen to get into politics but they say they just can’t get in because it’s sort of been overtaken by all these faces that they’ve seen for years who are constantly reelected and and getting young people. There are only for example 75 independent candidates in this election compared to 7,740 candidates in all a third of whom are women. Uh the young people say we can’t make it because we don’t have the money to be a candidate in the Iraqi elections. That’s why we are disappointed with what’s going on. Now, there are a couple of other major challenges. One of them is a balancing act between Iran on one side, the United States on the other. Uh basically because there are many factions in Iraq which are sympathetic to the Iranian leadership who are listening closely to Iraq and maybe less closely to the Iraqi government. and the Iraqi government is coming under uh pressure from the United States to deal with these armed groups, these factions. Now, some of these factions even have candidates who are running in the election today. So, this is a major challenge for the upcoming new government in Iraq uh which is going to have to address. There’s also the change in what has been going on in the region with the demise of the influence of uh Iran uh the war in uh Gaza uh the change of leadership in Syria plus uh all the uh involvement of for example Yemen in the war in Gaza as well and also the situation in Lebanon. So all of the the geopolitical situation around uh Iraq has changed quite a lot since 2021. There’s something else that the new government is going to have to take on board. So there are a lot of changes that um the new government is going to have to face. Well, we’ll have to see how today’s vote gets along.

Iraqis headed to the polls on Tuesday (November 11) to vote in a parliamentary election marked by tight security and a boycott by a political bloc. FRANCE 24’s Philip Turle gives us his analysis.
#Iraq #elections #Bagdad

🔔 Subscribe to France 24 now: https://f24.my/YTen
🔴 LIVE – Watch FRANCE 24 English 24/7 here: https://f24.my/YTliveEN

🌍 Read the latest International News and Top Stories: https://www.france24.com/en/

Like us on Facebook: https://f24.my/FBen
Follow us on X: https://f24.my/Xen
Bluesky: https://f24.my/BSen and Threads: https://f24.my/THen
Browse the news in pictures on Instagram: https://f24.my/IGen
Discover our TikTok videos: https://f24.my/TKen
Get the latest top stories on Telegram: https://f24.my/TGen