Voices Of The Middle East And North Africa

On Saturday, May 12th, Iraq held its parliamentary elections to decide the 329 members of the body, which will serve as the basis for establishing a new government. While Nearly 7000 candidates and more than 200 parties were vying for votes, only 44 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots in the recent elections; a notably low figure given that, no election since the U.S-British invasion of 2003 has had a turnout below 60 percent. This week we spend the hour focusing on the primary concerns of Iraqis in the run up to the election, the main protagonists contending for power in these elections. So What do the election results represent? What does the outcome mean to the regional and international actors? To answer these questions, Vomena’s Shahram Aghamir spoke with Loulouwa Al Rachid, who has been conducting research on Iraq and the Gulf region for the past 20 years- She argues that the elections highlighted the wide and dangerous gap between rulers and ruled in Iraq by reflecting massive popular rejec