Electronic voting breaks Iraqi blocs leaders' dominance

The National Iraqi Alliance announced on Thursday that the House of Representatives agreed during its 35th session which was held on Thursday, that electronic voting will be put in place as an alternative to voting by ‘raising hands.’ The electronic voting will be used starting from the next session and is considered a ‘success for Parliament,’ pointing out that the new system was politically, and not technically down. Jawad al-Hasnawi, the Alliance Deputy told Arabstoday that “Some leaders of political blocs were trying to prevent the adoption of electronic voting mechanism to exercise pressure on MPs to vote for what they believe is right rather than what MPs believe is right, which resulted in the majority of MPs of passing laws that they were not convinced of.” Hasnawi pointed out that some members used to vote for certain blocs by raising their hands even if they did not know some of the laws they were voting for as they believed that their bloc is responsible and will make the final decision regarding the votes. The House of Representatives began its 35th session at 11:00am local time and was headed by the head of Parliament Usama al-Nujayfi and attended by 235 MPs. Their agenda included the discussion of the report of the Commission of Inquiry on the targeting of doctors in the province of Kirkuk, as well as the second reading of a number of laws. A source in Parliament told Arabstoday that “the session will also vote on the bill abolishing the reservation to article Iraq (9) of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against women contained in Law No. (66) for the year 1986, as well as the second reading of the laws of Dar Al-Nahrain disengagement for printing from the Iraqi Central Bank and attaching it to the Secretariat of the Council of Ministers, and the network of social protection, and the contract law of treaties. Furthermore, the sources stated that it has been agreed on the postponement of the second reading for the Council of strategic policies until Sunday’s session so that voting on it could take place electronically. The House of Representatives held its 34th session on Tuesday 4th October 2011 after discussing the report of the Investigation Commission to verify the failures of the distribution of power and voting to cancel the decision of the dissolved Revolutionary Command Council No. 55 of 1999 and the first reading of the law of accession of the Republic of Iraq to the Agreement of establishing the International Islamic Organisation for trade finance and the law of the Ministry of Agriculture and the law of ratification Convention on the training of Iraqi security forces between the Government of the Republic of Iraq and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Last August, the House of Representatives voted in their 19th session on the Law of the Supreme Council of the strategic policies after the termination of its first reading, as a condition of the political blocs not to oppose the Iraqi constitution texts.