Broadcaster named to Baghdad seat in parliament meant for jailed fuel chief

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s electoral commission on Tuesday gave a vacant Baghdad seat in parliament to broadcaster Ensegam al-Gharawi, passing over a state fuel distribution chief who was first in line for it until a court jailed him last month.

The seat belongs to Baghdad Mayor Ammar Mousa, who was elected in the November 2025 parliamentary election but chose to stay in his post rather than join parliament. Hussein Talib, director general of the state-owned Oil Products Distribution Company, was due to replace him.

The commission’s Board of Commissioners declined to approve Talib as the first replacement candidate because his eligibility to take Mousa’s place had not been established, according to two commission documents. The board approved Gharawi instead, in a decision dated Tuesday.

Gharawi ran for Ammar al-Hakim’s Hikma Movement on the list of his Alliance of Nation State Forces. She won 4,866 votes in Baghdad governorate, placing fifth among the alliance’s candidates there, the documents show. Talib also belongs to Hikma.

The board directed its chairman to notify parliament of the decision, which names Gharawi as the next eligible candidate for the seat. She must take the constitutional oath in parliament before taking it up.

Security forces arrested Talib, whose full name is Hussein Talib Abboud Marouh al-Fadhli, in Baghdad on July 8 over suspected involvement in corruption cases, hours before he was due to be sworn in.

A court later sentenced Talib to eight years in prison for benefiting from contracts at the North Refineries Company, which runs the Baiji refinery, the Federal Commission of Integrity said on Oct. 27. The court also ordered him to repay 55 billion dinars (about $36 million at the official rate). The commission did not name the court or say which article of the Penal Code he was convicted under.

The day after his arrest, Hikma said it supported the government’s measures against corruption and that only the judiciary could decide the case. It said any responsibility, if proven, would be personal and would not extend to the movement.

Talib’s arrest was part of Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s anti-corruption campaign, which intensified after the May 29 arrest of former Deputy Oil Minister Adnan al-Jumaili, a former director general of the North Refineries Company. Two days after Talib’s sentence, a court jailed Azm Alliance leader Muthanna al-Samarrai for six years and lawmaker Ziad al-Janabi for five over contracts at the same company.