IHEC staff protest in Baghdad over stalled housing project, demand ‘right to housing’

BAGHDAD – Employees of Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission gathered in Tahrir Square on Saturday to protest delays in a long-promised investment housing project, saying the plan has sat untouched for more than three years despite official approvals.

Organizers said this was the fifth protest by staff demanding action on the project, which is planned on land known as Dahla in the Bakriya area between Ghazaliya and Abu Ghraib. They blamed continued obstruction and the installation of power-transmission towers by the Electricity Ministry inside the project site.

Protesters carried banners describing Election Commission staff as “the shield of the political process and the guarantee of peaceful transfer of power,” and saying they “deserve a dignified life.”

“The Election Commission is the foundation of building democracy, and its employees do not own a single meter in this country. We protest today to demand our rights,” commission employee Jumana al-Ghalai told 964media. She said the Prime Minister’s Office had approved allocating investment land for the project, “but it remains ink on paper. More than three years have passed and nothing from the housing complex has been completed.”

Al-Ghalai called for a high-level committee from the Prime Minister’s Office, the legal department, the Finance Ministry, the Investment Commission, Baghdad Operations and the Central Bank “to resolve this issue.”

She said employees waited until after the parliamentary elections to avoid influencing the vote. “We completed our task, thank God. We completed the election of the Iraqi Council of Representatives with full integrity and transparency. We worked day and night and even slept in the offices to complete the mission successfully,” she said.

Protest coordination committee member Saif al-Taie said staff are protesting the repeated postponement of the housing scheme, stressing that it is not a free handout.

“This is the fifth protest. We came out today against the postponement of the housing project for Election Commission employees. This project is an investment project, and the housing units are not distributed for free,” he said.

Al-Taie accused the Electricity Ministry of encroaching on the site. He said the ministry installed transmission towers and altered their route from a neighboring plot onto the project land.

“The project land is called Dahla, within the Bakriya area between Ghazaliya and Abu Ghraib,” he said, adding that despite approvals from the Cabinet, Baghdad Municipality and the Investment Commission, “we are surprised that the contract between the implementing company and the Investment Commission has not been signed.”

He also rejected accusations that staff had already received land in return for their work.

“Many politicians challenged the work of the commission’s employees and promoted claims that staff received housing plots, or that the government distributed them to buy our loyalty. None of this exists in reality,” al-Taie said, noting that the Federal Judiciary, the Integrity Commission and local and international organizations “proved the integrity of the commission’s work.”

Hassan Hadi Zair, a member of the commission’s media team, said staff feel overlooked compared with other state employees.

“Since 2004 until now, no employee of the commission has received the simplest constitutional and legal rights, which is the right to housing,” he said, describing recent media reports about alleged plot distributions as “a bad message toward the commission’s major work.”

Zair said protesters chose Tahrir Square because of its symbolic role in civic mobilization. He called the square “a symbol of freedom, and we always use this place to demand our rights. Today we call for justice for the commission’s employees in line with constitutional rights.”