Iraq’s Fatah Alliance on 27 December announced it will abide by the Federal Supreme Court’s ruling which ratified the results of this year’s parliamentary elections.

The leader of the Shia-majority party, Hadi al-Ameri, said the decision was taken in the interest of “maintaining stability and peace in the country.”

In a statement made available to the media, Al-Ameri said: ”Committed to the constitution and the law, and due to our fear for Iraq’s security and political stability, and our belief in the political process and its democratic path, we adhere to the Court’s decision despite our belief that the electoral process was rife with fraud and manipulation.”

He added that, despite accepting the ruling, the Fatah Alliance believes that the decision of the court was influenced by ”great external and internal pressures.” He argued that going by the the ”solid and logical” evidence presented earlier this month by the Shia Cooperation Framework, an independent court would have given a different judgement.

The Shia Cooperation Framework is an ad hoc group, which includes the Fatah Alliance, the State of Law Coalition, and several parties affiliated with the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU). It was formed to challenge the 10 October election results, which saw most of these groups relegated to a handful of parliamentary seats.

However, on 27 December, the Federal Supreme Court rejected a legal challenge launched by these groups calling for new elections.

Iraq’s other political parties praised the court’s decision.

Influential Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said the decision will pave way for the formation of a majority government ”that is neither eastern nor western.”

Al-Sadr is the leader of the Sairoon Coalition, the biggest winners of the elections according to the results presented by the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC).

Meanwhile the Kurdish Democratic Party, which won 31 seats in the parliamentary polls, also welcomed the judgement.

According to the IHEC, the Sairoon Coalition, won 73 seats, they are followed by the Taqaddum bloc of former parliament speaker Mohammad Halbousi with 37 seats, while the State of Law Coalition, led by former Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, managed to get 34 seats.

The Fatah alliance, which in the 2018 polls won 48 seats, only managed to secure 17 seats this year.

Following the announcement of preliminary results back in October, supporters of the Shia-majority parties took to the streets in protest.

Iraqi security forces responded with a heavy hand to these mobilizations.

In particular, on 5 November at least one person was killed and more than 90 were injured when security forces opened fire on protesters who had gathered outside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone.