ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iraq’s electoral body (IHEC) said on Thursday that over 737,000 people applied to be poll officials for the November parliamentary elections, with the elections commission already announcing that they would only need 250,000 cadres.

 

"The number of applicants to be poll officials across Iraq has exceeded 737,000,” Hassan Hadi Zayer, a member of the commission's media team, has told the state media. 

 

Applications were closed on Wednesday. 

 

Iraq is set to hold parliamentary elections on November 11, with 118 parties and 25 alliances having “expressed their desire to participate,” according to the IHEC.

 

Previous charts published by the electoral body show that the highest number of applicants comes from Baghdad, followed by Basra, Nineveh, and Muthannas, respectively, with Erbil seeing the lowest rate of applications. 

 

Zayer explained that the official election campaigning will commence on October 9 and continue until November 8, 24 hours ahead of early voting.

 

Concerning fines that the IHEC will levy against violators during the election campaiging, Zayer said "the penalties imposed by the commission against violators range from a warning to financial penalties ranging from one million to 25 million dinars, and may even reach, depending on the type of violation, exclusion from the electoral race."

 

“So far, no candidate has been disqualified,” he said, noting that "there are electoral crimes that may amount to an electoral crime, such as sabotaging a competitor's campaign. These matters will be clarified by the commission soon."

The upcoming November elections will establish the sixth term of the Iraqi legislature, with over 29 million people eligible to cast a ballot.