Politics of Iraq


Iraq is a federal parliamentary representative democratic republic. It is a multi-party system whereby the executive power is exercised by the Prime Minister of the Council of Ministers as the head of government, the President of Iraq as the largely ceremonial head of state, and legislative power is vested in the Council of Representatives.
The Regimes of the World index rated Iraq 2024 an electoral autocracy.

Government

Federal government

The federal government of Iraq is defined under the current constitution as a democratic, federal parliamentary republic. The federal government is composed of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, as well as numerous independent commissions. Islam is the official religion of the state and a foundation source of legislation, and no law may be enacted that contradicts its established provisions; furthermore, no law may be enacted that contradicts the principles of democracy or those basic rights and freedoms stipulated in the constitution.
The legislative branch is composed of the Council of Representatives and a Federation Council. The executive branch is composed of the president, the prime minister, and the Council of Ministers. According to the informally adopted muhasasa quota system, the president is expected to be a Kurd, the prime minister a Shia, and the [Speaker of the Council of Representatives of Iraq|Council of Representatives of Iraq|speaker] a Sunni. The federal judiciary is composed of the Supreme Judicial Council, the Court of Cassation, the Supreme Court, the Public Prosecution Department, the Judiciary Oversight Commission, and other federal courts that are regulated by law. One such court is the Central Criminal Court.
The Independent High Commission for Human Rights, the Independent High Electoral Commission, and the Commission on Integrity are independent commissions subject to monitoring by the Council of Representatives. The Central Bank of Iraq, the Board of Supreme Audit, the Communications and Media Commission, and the Endowment Commission are financially and administratively independent institutions. The Foundation of Martyrs is attached to the Council of Ministers. The Federal Public Service Council regulates the affairs of the federal public service, including appointment and promotion.

Local government

The basic subdivisions of the country are the federal regions and governorates. Both regions and governorates are given broad autonomy with regions given additional powers such as control of internal security forces for the region such as police, security forces, and guards. The last local elections for the governorates were held in the Iraqi governorate elections on 31 January 2009.

Federal regions

The constitution requires that the Council of Representatives enact a law which provides the procedures for forming a new region 6 months from the start of its first session. A law was passed 11 October 2006 by a unanimous vote with only 138 of 275 representatives present, with the remaining representatives boycotting the vote. Legislators from the Iraqi Accord Front, Sadrist Movement and Islamic Virtue Party all opposed the bill.
Under the law, a region can be created out of one or more existing governorates or two or more existing regions, and a governorate can also join an existing region to create a new region. A new region can be proposed by one third or more of the council members in each affected governorate plus 500 voters or by one tenth or more voters in each affected governorate. A referendum must then be held within three months, which requires a simple majority in favour to pass. In the event of competing proposals, the multiple proposals are put to a ballot and the proposal with the most supporters is put to the referendum. In the event of an affirmative referendum a Transitional Legislative Assembly is elected for one year, which has the task of writing a constitution for the Region, which is then put to a referendum requiring a simple majority to pass. The President, Prime Minister and Ministers of the region are elected by simple majority, in contrast to the Iraqi Council of Representatives which requires two thirds support.
The northern Kurdistan Region emerged in 1992 with its own local government and parliament officially recognised in 2005 following the adoption of the new constitution.

Provinces

Iraq is divided into 19 governorates, which are further divided into districts:

Political parties

Parliamentary alliances and parties

Other parties

Illegal parties

Elections

Iraqi parliamentary election, January 2005

Elections for the National Assembly of Iraq were held on January 30, 2005, in Iraq. The 275-member National Assembly was a parliament created under the Transitional Law during the Occupation of Iraq. The newly elected transitional Assembly was given a mandate to write the new and permanent Constitution of Iraq and exercised legislative functions until the new Constitution came into effect, and resulted in the formation of the Iraqi Transitional Government.
The United Iraqi Alliance, tacitly backed by Shia Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, led with some 48% of the vote. The Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan was in second place with some 26% of the vote. Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's party, the Iraqi List, came third with some 14%. In total, twelve parties received enough votes to win a seat in the assembly.
Low Arab Sunni turnout threatened the legitimacy of the election, which was as low as 2% in Anbar province. More than 100 armed attacks on polling places took place, killing at least 44 people across Iraq, including at least 20 in Baghdad.

Iraqi parliamentary election, December 2005

Following the ratification of the Constitution of Iraq on 15 October 2005, a general election was held on 15 December to elect the permanent 275-member Iraqi Council of Representatives.
The elections took place under a list system, whereby voters chose from a list of parties and coalitions. 230 seats were apportioned among Iraq's 18 governorates based on the number of registered voters in each as of the January 2005 elections, including 59 seats for Baghdad Governorate. The seats within each governorate were allocated to lists through a system of Proportional Representation. An additional 45 "compensatory" seats were allocated to those parties whose percentage of the national vote total exceeds the percentage of the 275 total seats that they have been allocated. Women were required to occupy 25% of the 275 seats. The change in the voting system gave more weight to Arab Sunni voters, who make up most of the voters in several provinces. It was expected that these provinces would thus return mostly Sunni Arab representatives, after most Sunnis boycotted the last election.
Turnout was high. The White House was encouraged by the relatively low levels of violence during polling, with one insurgent group making good on a promised election day moratorium on attacks, even going so far as to guard the voters from attack. President Bush frequently pointed to the election as a sign of progress in rebuilding Iraq. However, post-election violence threatened to plunge the nation into civil war, before the situation began to calm in 2007. The election results themselves produced a shaky coalition government headed by Nouri al-Maliki.

Iraqi parliamentary election, 2010

A parliamentary election was held in Iraq on 7 March 2010. The election decided the 325 members of the Council of Representatives of Iraq who will elect the Iraqi Prime Minister and President. The election resulted in a partial victory for the Iraqi National Movement, led by former Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, which won a total of 91 seats, making it the largest alliance in the council. The State of Law Coalition, led by incumbent Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, was the second largest grouping with 89 seats.
The election was rife with controversy. Prior to the election, the Supreme Court in Iraq ruled that the existing electoral law/rule was unconstitutional, and a new elections law made changes in the electoral system. On 15 January 2010, the Independent High Electoral Commission banned 499 candidates from the election due to alleged links with the Ba'ath Party. Before the start of the campaign on 12 February 2010, IHEC confirmed that most of the appeals by banned candidates had been rejected and 456 of the initially banned candidates would not be allowed to run for the election. There were numerous allegations of fraud, and a recount of the votes in Baghdad was ordered on 19 April 2010. On May 14, IHEC announced that after 11,298 ballot boxes had been recounted, there was no sign of fraud or violations.
The new parliament opened on 14 June 2010. After months of fraught negotiations, an agreement was reached on the formation of a new government on November 11. Talabani would continue as president, Al-Maliki would stay on as prime minister and Allawi would head a new security council.

Iraqi parliamentary election, 2014

Parliamentary elections were held in Iraq on 30 April 2014. The elections decided the 328 members of the Council of Representatives who will in turn elect the Iraqi President and Prime Minister.

Iraqi parliamentary election, 2021

On 30 November 2021, the political bloc led by Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr was confirmed the winner of the October parliamentary election. His Sadrist Movement, won a total of 73 out of the 329 seats in the parliament. The Taqadum, or Progress Party-led by Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi, a Sunni – secured 37 seats. Former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law party got 33 seats in parliament. Al-Fatah alliance, whose main components are militia groups affiliated with the Iran-backed Popular Mobilisation Forces, sustained its crushing loss and snatched 17 seats. The Kurdistan Democratic Party received 31 seats, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan gained 18.

After the election 2022–2025

In June 2022, 73 members of parliament from the Sadrist movement, resigned.
On 27 October 2022, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, close ally of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, took the office to succeed Mustafa al-Kadhimi as new Prime Minister of Iraq.

Iraqi parliamentary election, 2025

On 17 November 2025, the Iraqi Independent High Electoral Commission announced that the Reconstruction and Development coalition, led by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, topped the final results with 46 seats in the 329-member Council of Representatives, followed by the Progress (Taqaddum) party of former Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi with 36 seats, and the State of Law coalition of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki with 29 seats. Subsequently, the Shia-led Coordination Framework declared that it had constituted itself as the largest parliamentary bloc by uniting its component parties, thereby positioning itself as a central force in government formation and parliamentary negotiations.

Issues

Corruption

According to Transparency International, Iraq's is the most corrupt government in the Middle East, and is described as a "hybrid regime". The 2011 report "Costs of War" from Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies concluded that U.S. military presence in Iraq has not been able to prevent this corruption, noting that as early as 2006, "there were clear signs that post-Saddam Iraq was not going to be the linchpin for a new democratic Middle East."

Elite cartel ruling Iraq by ''muhasasa''

During the regime of Saddam Hussein, several Iraqi opposition groups created a quota system by which Sunni Islamic, Shia Islamic, Kurdish and other religious or ethnic groups would be proportionally represented in a future new government. The U.S. in July 2003 selected the members of the Iraqi Governing Council, the forerunner of the first post–Hussein sovereign Iraqi interim government, according to that ethno-sectarian quota system.
Also in 2003, a "pact" was struck by "the elite", holding that after a national election, the winning parties divide the ministerial positions in direct relationship to their success at the ballot box. After 2003, a second agreement was made, holding that ministries and their budgets and other political positions must be proportionally placed under the "control" of "religious groups", "depending mostly on a group's size", presuming such "groups" to be fully represented by one or several parties or lists taking part in the elections, or that national governments should "represent the different ethnic, religious and sectarian identities that make up the Iraqi society", presuming that such "identities" are expressed or represented by existing political parties. Such agreements between members of the elite to collude in order to avoid competition, improve their own profits, and dominate the market, have been labeled "elite cartel". The political parties themselves, once they win any ministry through the muhasasa system, benefit financially from state contracts awarded by them to companies run by their party members what makes it even harder for them to step out of the muhasasa arrangements. Or, as a researcher phrased it in 2020: "Such elite pacts are notoriously resistant to reform, particularly if any proposed change is perceived to undermine elite interests ".
Although the system functions informally, a group of Norwegian researchers in late 2020 asserted—while citing other researchers but not a basic source—that 54% of the ministry posts would 'normally' go to the Shia, 24% to the Sunni, 18% to the Kurds, and 4% to minorities including the Christians. They suggested that the muhasasa system leads to "a closed system of elite rule… recycling the political elites irrespective of their performance", not urging or inciting the Iraqi politicians to act transparently or accountably or to respond to citizen demands and deliver benefits to the Iraqi population as a whole, but instead making them easily susceptible to corruption, nepotism, clientelism and patronage while focusing on their own interests and survival and consolidation.
This muhasasa elite cartel led to massive protests in Iraq in 2011, 2012–2013, 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019–2021. Analysts have seen this muhasasa system to exist until at least late 2020. The Abdul Mahdi Government of 2018 broke with elements of muhasasa. Although his anti-muhasasa Sadrist Movement retained plurality in the 2021 election, inability to form a government eventually led to the party's withdrawal from Parliament, allowing the rival parties to form another muhasasa-based government.

Incompetent government

Those two muhasasa agreements in and after 2003 had the effect that, starting with the first post–2003 Iraqi government after elections in 2006, if a party "controlled" a ministry, it appointed also the top positions in their civil services to their party followers and faction members; also the positions for senior public service were distributed on the basis of "ethnic, religious and/or party affiliation" rather than merit, professional competence or experience. This incompetence caused mismanagement in the successive Iraqi governments of Al-Maliki (2006–2014), Al-Abadi (2014–2018), and also Abdul-Mahdi (2018–2020), leading to hundreds of billions of dollars being wasted on failed projects and the neglect of electricity networks, the transportation sector, economic legislation, and other infrastructure, as well as citizen demands not being responded to. Such incompetence – next to other forms of political turmoil like corruption and instability – is considered by many analysts to have also fostered the rise of ISIL, in 2014.

Clientelism, patronage

Civil services being staffed – under these muhasasa agreements – according to party loyalty had the effect that state contracts would only be awarded by them to "party-affiliated companies and businesspeople", who would be paid handsomely for their contracted services; even if they hardly, or not at all, actually delivered those services. Such manner of spending state finances has been labeled governmental contracting fraud and structural political corruption: not the general public but privileged companies were being served by the government. This culture of clientelism and "systemic political patronage" produced a new class of entrepreneurs, getting rich through close relations with government officials and their lush government contracts. Meanwhile, politicians themselves lived in wealth, self-enrichment and massive personal protection.

Stagnant economy

The infrastructure not being maintained or modernized due to governmental incompetence and mismanagement severely hampered the development of private economic activity, therefore meaning the private sector could not absorb the half million of young people entering the job market every year. This muhasasa-style 'cartel' government, due to its lack of accountability – politicians being "recycled... irrespective of their performance" – provided too little incentives for those politicians to build a diversified and competitive economy or "deliver benefits to the population".

Lack of commitment towards federalism

Since the adoption of the new Iraqi constitution in 2005, federalism with a heavy emphasis on decentralisation has been the official model of governance in Iraq. However, certain constitutional stipulations, such as those related to the creation of the Federation Council have not been implemented, which remains an issue undermining the full implementation of federalism in the country. In September 2017, a one-sided referendum was held in Iraq's Kurdistan Region regarding Kurdish independence, which resulted in 92% voting in favor of independence. The referendum was rejected by the federal government and ruled as illegal by the Federal Supreme Court. Following this, an armed conflict ensued between the federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government which resulted in Kurdish defeat and capitulation; Kurdistan Region subsequently lost territory it had previously occupied, and the president of Kurdistan Region officially resigned, and finally, the regional government announced that it would respect the Federal Supreme Court's ruling that no Iraqi province is allowed to secede, effectively abandoning the referendum. According to a report published by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a U.S-based think tank, since Kurdistan Region's failed bid to gain independence, the federal government has been severely punishing it both politically and economically. In gradual steps, the federal government has consistently weakened Kurdistan Region's ability to administer its own affairs by revoking crucial authorities that had previously defined its autonomy. Furthermore, since it won a pivotal ICC arbitration case, the federal government has also been refusing Kurdistan Region access to its most important source of income, namely, oil exports, and the latter has had no other option but to concede. Some have argued that this signals the Iraqi government's intention to abandon federalism and return to a centralized political system, and in a leaked letter sent in 2023 to the U.S president, the prime minister of Kurdistan region wrote of an impending collapse of Kurdistan Region.