Seven killed in clashes between Iraqi police, protesters demanding electoral reform

BAGHDAD: Seven people were killed in clashes that erupted in central Baghdad on Saturday between the security forces and protesters demanding reforms to Iraq´s electoral system, police said.

The violence was the deadliest to break out at a protest since a wave of demonstrations demanding better services and accusing Iraq´s political class of corruption and nepotism began in 2015.

Police fired tear gas and rubber-coated bullets at the crowd when some protesters, most of them supporters of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, tried to force a cordon and reach Baghdad´s fortified Green Zone.

"There were seven dead as a result of the violence. Two of them are from the security forces and the other five are protesters," a police colonel told AFP on condition of anonymity.

He said more than 200 were hurt in the chaos. Most were protesters suffering from tear gas inhalation, but at least 11 had more serious injuries caused by bullets and tear gas canisters.

Protesters initially gathered peacefully on Tahrir square to demand a change in the electoral law and the replacement of the electoral commission ahead of provincial polls due in September.

"The demonstrators tried to cross Jumhuriya bridge, the security forces fired tear gas to stop them but they insisted," a senior police official said.

Sadr supporters accusing Iraq´s political class of corruption and nepotism broke into the so-called Green Zone twice in 2016, storming the prime minister´s office and the parliament building.

Pressure on Abadi

His supporters stormed the Green Zone, which is home to the electoral commission and most of the country´s other key institutions, on two occasions last year.

The protesters on Saturday were met with fierce resistance from the security forces and never made it across the Tigris River that runs between Tahrir Square and the Green Zone.

But Sadr, a mercurial cleric who once led a rebellion against US occupation but has more recently spearheaded an anti-corruption protest movement, urged Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi not to turn a deaf ear.

"I urge him to deliver those reforms immediately, listen to the voice of the people and remove the corrupt," the statement said.

A smaller group of protesters had already demonstrated near the Green Zone on Wednesday, while hundreds also gathered in several southern cities on Friday.

Their two main demands are for the members of the electoral commission to be replaced on the grounds that they are all affiliated to political parties and that the body supervising nationwide ballots was therefore anything but independent.

They also want electoral law to be amended to give a wider berth to smaller parties in the country´s elected bodies.

The current seat allocation system for parliament was adopted before 2014 parliamentary polls, after small parties made significant gains in provincial elections a year earlier.

Last year´s protest movement was halted when tens of thousands of forces launched Iraq´s largest military operation in years four months ago to retake the city of Mosul from Daesh.

The announcement last month that elections would take place in September however has brought the political agenda back to the fore and Sadr´s movement announced it would up the pressure again.