Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Thursday invited Iraq’s political groups to meet after the Eid al-Fitr holiday and agree on how to move forward in establishing a new parliament and government, Reuters reported.
May’s parliamentary election was marred by low turnout and allegations of fraud, stalling talks on forming a new government. Parliament mandated a nationwide manual recount of votes and some politicians called for it to be repeated.
“Despite the violations and irregularities that tainted the election, following legal methods, obeying the law and the constitution, is the only way to solve these problems and move towards forming a new parliament and a government,” he said in a pre-recorded address.