Fifteen years after US President George W. Bush gave his “Mission
Accomplished” address, Iraq continues its struggle for democracy. Regrettably,
key institutions like its Independent High Electoral Commission have proven inefficient
in laying the foundations for a thriving democracy. What is worst, they are
failing to learn from their own recent experiences.
In May 2018, Iraq headed to the polls for its first election
in the post-ISIS era. What initially appeared to be a relatively decent
election gradually emerged to have involved massive potential fraud, forcing
a manual recount of the results of a failed electronic voting system. These
botched elections cast into serious doubt Iraq's ability to strengthen its
own democratic institutions and conduct future election processes.
The tragic episode of the 2018 elections could have had a
positive spin, had authorities learned the lesson. However, the fact that they
are mulling over the idea of using the same unreliable technology, is a sad
testament to the struggle facing Iraq’s fragile, corrupt and inefficient
institutions.
Most of the complaints reported after the 2018 election in
Iraq concerned the alleged compromise of the optical scanners provided by Miru
Systems. The
$135 million system purchased by Iraq’s elections commission was intended
to help the critical vote-counting process. Yet, as
reported by media outlets, tests of electronic voting machines produced
varied results, giving credence to the fraud claims.
Miru
Systems is no stranger to this type of controversies. Currently, its
leadership is having to answer questions before South Korea’s parliament about
its dealings with election commissions in countries like the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Argentina
and El Salvador. Prosecutors
allege that a corruption scheme allowed Miru to win contracts. The
Association of World Election Bodies (A-WEB), which helped
MIRU to win contracts around the world, is also under
investigation in South Korea.
Though it is yet to be proven if Miru Systems applied in
Iraq similar questionable techniques to close deals, it is already evident that
the end result is far from ideal.
Miru’s voting technology was analyzed
by academics from the United States and Argentina. According to election
expert Joseph Hall, experts “were able to show how completely insecure the Miru
system was, including: publicly posted cryptographic keys allowing total modification
of the system or vote data; radio transmission of each ballot, which was easily
intercepted; and using chips embedded in each paper ballot (RFID tags) to load
many more than one vote per ballot.” Argentina stopped the procurement and
legislative authorization process to obtain these machines shortly after the
security researchers publicly presented these flaws to Argentinian legislators.
Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission must rebuild
trust after the 2018 mayhem. The nation needs an election that leads to the
kind of political stability that generates trust and creates the conditions for
a thriving democracy. So far, transparent, efficient and modern elections
continue to be a “Mission Unaccomplished”.
