This is CBSI in the world. I'm John Batchel. I welcome my colleague Bridget Toomey of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, reporting on Iraq and voting and a positive direction.

Bridget, a very good evening to you. I understand there's always the twist, but a vote is a

positive thing. What do we know so far about the voting and the protecting of the voting? Good

evening to you. Good evening, John. Yes, the Iraqis did vote in the parliamentary elections

last week. So the results have come out, the preliminary results, and we're expecting

to see final results soon. The final results shouldn't hold big differences, but they just

formalize what the preliminary results say. So about 56% of eligible voters turned out, which was higher than expected. And the unfortunate news is the

Shiite parties close to Tehran performed rather well in this election. It looks like the

Shia parties might even have enough seats in parliament to surpass the majority needed to form a

government if they can manage to hold together. The coordination framework, which has been the

Shiite coalition ruling this past government, has had some infighting, but they're in

discussions about government formation, and they

and Tehran would both likely hope for them to be able to come together and form another

Shia-led government that is open to working with Tehran.

You indicate that there are doubts about the vote, whether it's honest, whether it's straightforward,

whether it's trustworthy, whether it produces results.

How widespread are those doubts?

I understand intellectuals would speak out.

The taxi driver is unhappy.

Yeah.

The average people in Iraq generally have felt that these elections don't actually affect much change.

That instead, there's a kind of prolonged government formation process.

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