Abadi: Re-election responsibility of the Federal Court only

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's Supreme Federal Court is the only entity entitled to decide on the need to re-run parliamentary elections in May, Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi's spokesman told Reuters on Monday.

"This is a matter for the Federal Court, not the executive authority or any other body," Saad al-Hadithi said when asked about the prime minister's suspension of the speaker's call for another election.

Parliament passed a manual counting of votes after several parties said the vote was a sham. On Sunday, fire broke out at a polling station with half of the boxes in the capital.

The Electoral Commission in Iraq announced on Sunday that after the burning of the ballot boxes on the side of Rusafa, any action on the abolition of the elections whether or not has become the court of the Federal Court.

A member of the Board of Commissioners, Saad Kaakai, said that the fires in the warehouses of the Commission is a terrible crime against the Iraqi voter, and the authorities concerned to take all the procedures as soon as possible and investigate this crime, indicating that the causes and consequences of damage from the fire to this moment is unclear.

He added that the decision to cancel the elections after the fire is not in the hands of the Board of Commissioners, but in the hands of the Judicial Council and the Federal Court, and the decision is after knowing the size of the fire and the amount of the exhaustion of the votes of voters.

The fire broke out at the Baghdad Department of Commerce's stores on Sunday afternoon, which contained ballot boxes for last May's legislative elections.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives Salim al-Jubouri called, after the fires that erupted in dozens of ballot boxes, the need to re-election parliamentary elections.

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