Subject: Fwd: Iraq election analysis
From: "Ken Wollack" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 May 2018 14:17:43 -0400

Official results and seat counts are not yet available for the Iraq
election for reasons explained by NDI Iraq Country Director, Ancuta Hansen,
below, but NDI's staff compiled some interesting numbers and comparisons
and put together this preliminary analysis of the 2018 Parliamentary
election. Please see Ancuta's note in the attached document.

Ken

Kenneth Wollack
President
National Democratic Institute
455 Massachusetts Ave., NW, 8th Floor
Washington, DC 20001
202-728-5500 (Tel)
888-875-2887 (Fax)
email: [email-masked]
website: www.ndi.org

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ancuta Hansen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, May 18, 2018 at 11:51 AM
Subject: Re: Comparison with last election
To: Les Campbell <[email-masked]>
Cc: Nicole Rowsell <[email-masked]>

Dear Les,

Please find her
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DGK874TaNTWDJFRCq3oGN8bMSRJ67dmsBqGkvy9xetA/edit#heading=h.gjdgxs>
​e and pasted below​
 a short post-election analysis. At the bottom is has the turnout
comparison as well as a seat comparison with 2014. All 2018 numbers are
estimates.

Beyond the points made in the document, we see that the international
community is in a bit of panic mode, shifting its attention from election
administration issues to government formation and back. All this confusion
is entertained by IHEC's delay in releasing official results and refusal to
allow manual counting. Until we know if these elections will be declared
valid, my suggestion is to use a moderate tone on potential government
coalitions and reasons for winning/losing. However, as you'll see in our
analysis, we believe that Abadi lost terrain during the last couple of
months as he became the "establishment" candidate, instead of the "outcast"
or "change maker" that the Iraqis expected. A less experienced politician,
and without the Da'wa campaign machine behind him, he also lost the ground
game. Sadr capitalised on the very low turnout by being consistent and
excelling at GOTV.

Hope this is helpful to make a bit of sense of this election.

Best,

Ancut