We interviewed 12 organisations concerned with the affairs of disabled people in Iraq and eight people with mobility and visual disabilities who were unable to participate in the 2021 elections. They unanimously agreed that the government had failed to facilitate their participation in voting over the past two decades. Will this be repeated in local elections? For days before the parliamentary elections on October 10, 2021, Mohammed Al-Ajeeli hoped to participate and vote for the candidate he deemed worthy.

On the morning of October 9, at 7 a.m., the day specifically designated for voting in military personnel, Al-Ajeeli got up from his bed, put on his black suit, and quickly drove to the secret polling centre located in Al-Sumoud Girls’ School in Zafaraniya district, southeast of Baghdad. 

Upon arriving at the polling station, about 18 km from his home, Al-Ajeeli, who has been using a wheelchair for 16 years, was informed by the staff that his name was listed among the voters registered on the school’s second floor. With no other option available, he had to return home. 

Al-Ajeeli, (43-years-old) was an employee at the Ministry of Education before joining the army at a recruitment centre in southern Baghdad in 2007. However, the centre was subjected to a terrorist attack, leaving Al-Ajeeli paralysed and having to use a wheelchair. At the time, Iraq was experiencing sectarian violence and almost daily attacks using car bombs and explosive belts carried out by extremist religious groups. These crises left many people with physical disabilities, such as loss of limbs, blindness, deafness, or other forms of bodily harm. 

Second-floor voting 

Al-Ajeeli expressed his frustration with the practice of holding elections in multi-floor school buildings with steep stairs and no elevators. The inaccessible polling centres the Electoral Commission uses prevent some disabled people, like Al-Ajeeli, from voting. This investigation documents the barriers facing disabled people in participating in political life despite promises and assurances from officials of facilitating their involvement. 

The investigator interviewed 12 organisations concerned with the affairs of disabled people in Iraq and eight individuals with physical and visual disabilities who were unable to participate in the 2021 elections. They unanimously agreed that the government had failed to facilitate their participation in voting over the past two decades. 

This was not the first time that Al-Ajeeli could not reach polling stations. Barring his participation in the 2005 elections before his injury, he has been unable to vote in the three subsequent electoral cycles despite his eagerness to do so. 

Al-Ajeeli pointed to the difficulty of voting and criticised successive Iraqi government’s failure to fulfil their commitments under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disablities which Iraq signed in 2013. 

Article 29 of the Convention obliges signatory states to guarantee the political rights of disabled people and provide them with “the opportunity to enjoy rights on an equal basis with others.” The convention specifies that states must ensure the right to vote and be elected. This includes guaranteeing that “voting procedures, facilities and materials are appropriate, accessible and easy to understand and use.” 

Al-Ajeeli’s struggle mirrors that of 50-year-old Alaa Haseeb Al-Nuaimi, who has also been unable to participate in previous elections due to her physical disability. In 2021, Al-Nuaimi reached the polling centre in Al-Salihiya area of central Baghdad, only to find her name listed at a polling station on the school’s second floor. 

“I felt a deep sense of loss as I watched others voting while I was unable to do so because there were no accessible facilities for disabled people at polling centres”, Al-Nuaimi said. 

Absence of Braille  

Muwaffaq Al-Khafaji, the head of the Disabled Association in Iraq, points out that the obstacles hindering the participation of disabled people in elections include the failure to print ballots in Braille, the tactile writing system that allows blind people to read through touch, and the lack of sign language interpreters for the deaf and mute at polling stations. 

Muwaffaq Al-Khafaji, a candidate in the 2014 parliamentary elections, criticised the Electoral Commission for failing to train some of its staff on basic sign language skills for communicating with the deaf and mute. He also denied the Commission’s claim that it assigned three staff members at each polling station to assist people with physical disabilities. 

Employees in the Electoral Commission offices in various governorates, who requested anonymity for fear of administrative penalties, confirmed that they had not received any official instructions or guidelines to facilitate the participation of disabled people in voting. One mentioned, “What we do is simply not let them wait in the voter line”. 

Surour Yusuf, the head of the Association for the Blind in Basra, agreed that polling stations do not have the necessary facilities for blind voters. 

Imad Jalil, a member of the Electoral Commission’s media team, justified the lack of Braille ballots by claiming, “There isn’t enough money to provide Braille ballots to 55,000 polling stations”. Jalil further explained that the number of centres in the 2021 elections was 8,273. “If a sign language interpreter were hired at each centre with a salary of 250,000 Iraqi dinars (about 150 US Dollars), the cost would be extremely high.” 

Eight months after the 2021 parliamentary elections, the Electoral Commission formed a specialised team to empower disabled people to participate in the electoral process and provide necessary support. This step came 20 years after Saddam Hussein’s government fell in April 2003. 

Iraqis have participated in five parliamentary elections since the U.S. occupation. Hussein Al-Karawi, head of the Friends of Disabled People Association in Babil, noted that participation for disabled people has been limited and difficult for many. He described voting in elections and political participation as being an ongoing struggle since 2003. 

Contradictory statistics 

The number of disabled people in Iraq is currently unknown. However, it exceeded 1.3 million in 2016, according to statistics from the Central Bureau of Statistics at the Ministry of Planning. 

Today, there is disagreement about the figures. Disability rights organisations estimate that, based on 2022 data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, the number has risen to four million out of Iraq’s 42 million population. However, the Planning Ministry spokesperson, Abdul-Zahra Al-Hindawi, estimated the figure to be closer to two million. 

Additionally, there were more than 25,000 civilian and military individuals added to the disability registry in Iraq following injuries sustained during protests that erupted in early October 2019 in several Iraqi cities. These protests, a response to corruption and unemployment, eventually led to the resignation of the government of the former Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, according to data from the Human Rights Commission. 

In the recent elections, the Electoral Commission registered 60,000 disabled people within the biometric system, a process of electronically recording voter data, as stated by Ahlam Al-Jabri, head of the Commission’s Disability Empowerment Team. 

Al-Jabri explained that the Commission gathered these statistics by including a field in the biometric registration process that indicates whether a person has a disability and the type of disability. 

Gaslighting and denial 

After monitoring 83 electoral districts across Iraq in 2021, the Shams Network, which specialises in election observation, reported the challenges disabled people face in accessing polling stations. Using school buildings as voting centres was seen as a significant obstacle. However, through its spokesperson, Al-Jabari, the Electoral Commission insisted that “voters with disabilities were assigned to polling stations on the ground floors, and a designated staff member at each station was trained in sign language to assist deaf and mute voters.” 

Despite these claims, eight disabled individuals from different regions confirmed the difficulty of accessing polling stations on upper floors with no elevators. 

Imad Jalil, a member of the Electoral Commission’s media team, stated that three staff members were assigned to each voting centre to assist physically disabled individuals in reaching upper-floor polling stations. However, Alaa Haseeb said, “I never saw these staff members, and even if they were present, I would refuse their assistance. How am I supposed to know they’re there if they don’t introduce themselves?” 

Muwaffaq Al-Khafaji added, “Why don’t they place the polling stations on the ground floor? Lifting a wheelchair upstairs is an insult and a violation of the rights of disabled people.” 

The Commission allowed blind voters to bring an assistant to guide them in selecting their candidates. Government official Jameel added, “If a voter doesn’t bring an assistant, the only person authorised to help them vote is the station manager, under the supervision of election observers.” 

However, this assisted voting system contradicts the Iraqi Parliamentary Elections Law No. 9 of 2022, which stipulates that voters must exercise their right to vote freely, directly, secretly, and individually and prohibits proxy voting. 

Participation through quotas 

Some disabled people feel that voting is futile. Nevertheless, a few have run for parliamentary elections, such as Haider Al-Jubouri, who stood as an independent candidate in Karbala, southwest of Baghdad. 

Al-Jubouri believes that thousands of disabled people might have voted for him if they had adequate facilities to reach the polling stations. 

All the interviewed individuals with disabilities consider the proposal of designating them as a minority with reserved parliamentary seats through a quota system as a possible solution to their current challenges. They believe maintaining the status quo will not help them achieve their aspirations. 

The demands for an electoral quota began with a parliamentary proposal submitted in 2019 by Yusra Rajab, a member of the Human Rights Committee during the previous parliamentary term. However, the proposal was rejected as it required an amendment to the Parliamentary Elections Law. 

On March 5, the Parliament completed the second reading of the draft amendment to the Elections Law without addressing the allocation of parliamentary seats to disabled people under a quota system. 

The failure to uphold the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the lack of voting facilitation, and the absence of a parliamentary quota might lead Mohammad Al-Ajeeli to reconsider participating in future elections if the current situation remains unchanged.