Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) officially announced the outcome of the manual vote recount, preparing the nation for their ratification. According to IHEC sources, the parliamentary elections on 12 May 2018 results were sent to the Federal Court. Speaking under the condition of anonymity, the sources said the ratification process may take up to 15 days, and is likely to launch at the beginning of next month. Parliament ordered the recount in June after widespread allegations of fraud cast doubt on the integrity of the ballot. The IHEC said the results of the recount matched the initial results from 13 of Iraq’s 18 provinces. At a time when the political blocs were engaged in several negotiations on alliances that pave the way for the formation of the largest parliamentary bloc, the recount’s results matching initial results is seen as a positive step for finalizing talks on forming the next government. Speaking on whether alliances will change after the announcement of the results and their ratification, Anbar governor Mohamed Al Halbusi told Asharq Al-Awsat that his party’s “alliance is currently engaged in dialogues with everyone pending the final ratification of election results.” Running for the post of Parliament Speaker, Halbusi said that he hopes for a future government program being presented and conceded upon by Iraqi political forces successfully. He also hoped for alliances to come together and form a productive majority parliamentary bloc so that it shoulders responsibility towards the people who will not wait any longer to have their rights fulfilled. Halbusi called upon losers in the election to respect results, saying that it is natural to have both a winner and a loser. He urged restrained to stop Iraq from going into a downward spiral. For its part, Iraqs Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s Victory Alliance announced forming negotiating committees to conduct dialogues with the political blocs. Victory Alliance senior official Riad al-Tamimi confirmed in a statement that the alliance formed negotiating committees in an effort to put together of the largest parliamentary bloc. Tamimi said that the Victory Alliance has no aversions whatsoever and is in the process of in-depth dialogue with everyone. The coming days will see Abadi visiting the Kurdistan region to hold talks with top Kurdish parties, such as the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.