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.

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 the IS. However, last month’s announcement that elections would take place in September has brought the political agenda back to the fore, and Sadr’s movement has vowed to increase the pressure again.

Their two main demands are for members of the electoral commission to be replaced on the grounds they are all affiliated to political parties. They also want the electoral law to be amended to give wider representation to smaller parties in the country’s elected bodies.

Published in Dawn, February 12th, 2017