Iraq’s parliamentary election on 11 November went smoothly from a procedural perspective but left a fragmented political landscape in its wake.
While incumbent Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani topped the poll on the back of a populist campaign of public sector spending, no one party is close to securing a majority.
This will likely produce a long period of government transition, with Iraq’s three main ethno-sectarian blocs all vying for influence.
“The elections were overall praised as smooth, but it’s important to acknowledge the concerning issues that marred the electoral process,” Dr Inna Rudolf, a Senior Research Fellow at King’s College London, told The New Arab.
“The Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) reported several violations related to electoral campaigning, and the murder of political candidate Safaa al-Mashhadani cast a shadow of fear and intimidation during the pre-election period. These factors could have influenced voter sentiment and participation,” she added.
Official turnout from the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) defied expectations, jumping from 43% last cycle to 55% this year. It was robust in Kurdish and Sunni governorates, but generally lower in Shia-majority areas. In Duhok governorate, turnout was 77.5%, but in Sudani’s home base of Maysan, it was 42.2%
“There’s something interesting in the results this time: There is no big winner,” Dr Sardar Aziz, a researcher and writer, told The New Arab.
In 2021, the Sadrists won 73 seats, which allowed them to embark on an attempt to form a majoritarian government with the Sunnis and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). This time, Sadr decided to boycott the election, telling supporters not to cast ballots. There will be major questions about his strategy moving forward.
In his absence, parties from the Shia Coordination Framework (SCF) dominated the bloc, according to a preliminary assessment of seat totals. Sudani’s new Reconstruction and Development Coalition won the most votes of any party, 1.3 million, which translated into 45 seats. Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law had a slightly disappointing night, winning 29 seats, but still won the second most overall.
Qais al-Khazali’s Sadiqun and the State Forces Alliance, led by Ammar al-Hakim, had strong performances with 26 and 18 seats respectively. The Badr Organisation also had 18 seats. Huquq, the political wing of Kataib Hezbollah, won six seats.
Along with Sudani, Rudolf identified Sadiqun as one of the big winners of the election.
“This shift reflects Khazali’s efforts to rebrand himself as a statesman and frame his political movement as a national, patriotic entity focused on Iraq first,” she said.
“We are still to witness how precisely the electoral performance is to affect the power dynamics within the SCF…[It] is meanwhile still openly communicating that they can easily form the largest bloc by uniting under a shared roof and that the prime minister is to be chosen based on their consensus,” she added.
This could force Sudani into concessions to other members of the Shia bloc to win a second term, but could just as easily sink it if the SCF is unwilling to consider him.
In the Sunni bloc, the main winner was former Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi and his Taqqadum Party, which won 26 seats. His Sunni rivals fared poorly, with the Azm and Siyada lists winning just 24 seats between them.
“Halbousi and the Sunni bloc are indeed keen on increasing their influence. Their success will largely depend on their ability to unify and negotiate effectively within the current political dynamics,” Rudolf said.
“The question remains whether they can indeed present a cohesive front and leverage their position in the new government formation, or whether each of them would seek to maximise its own influence by pursuing independently alliances and deals with some of the heavyweights from within the SCF,” she added.
The two ruling Kurdish parties – the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) – dominated in their home governorates, but had relatively disappointing nights in the disputed areas in Kirkuk and Nineveh.
The KDP in particular had a good night. It won more than one million votes, which was a major goal of its campaign. However, it only resulted in 26 seats, a decline from 31 in 2021.
This resulted in widespread criticism from KDP leaders and their supporters online, who argued that the federal electoral law was unfair. They cited the fact that Sudani was able to win 18 seats in Baghdad alone on less than 200,000 votes as evidence.
“The concentration on the million votes was symbolic in a way, to compensate for the possibility of losing seats,” Aziz explained.
Meanwhile, the Kurdish opposition saw significant changes. New Generation’s vote total dropped by almost 60% and it lost six of its nine seats. Although the party blamed the continued imprisonment of its leader, Shaswar Abdulwahid, voters were probably also turned off by the party’s lacklustre track record.
“They used to have an aura as a party with the radical narrative, and now that’s over,” Aziz said. “Probably it will be very difficult for them to recover, especially if their leader remains in prison.”
In its stead, relative newcomer the Halwest Movement won the most seats of any opposition party with five, while the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU) was the largest in terms of votes.
In a sign of the deep frustration felt among Kurdish voters with both the ruling parties and the opposition, nearly 300,000 voters spoiled their ballots.
With this fragmented political landscape in place, all eyes turn to the complicated process of government formation. Last cycle, it took more than a year for negotiators to form a government, which involved balancing a web of domestic and political interests.
While Shia parties will have a plurality of seats, Sunnis and Kurds will want to ensure that their interests are protected as well.
The main question is whether Sudani will become the first prime minister since Maliki to win a second term.
“According to the Iraqi political logic, he should not become prime minister again, but the situation this time is a bit different, so there might be more of a possibility,” Aziz said. “But it is not easy or guaranteed.”
He predicted that “there will be more kinds of broad-based government” because there was no single party that dominated the election.
The issue of the Iraqi presidency is another big question. It has been held by the PUK since 2005, but last cycle, the KDP launched a strong challenge, which proved a major stumbling block in the process.
This time competition between the two Kurdish parties over the position will be influenced by government formation in the Kurdistan Region, where they have been unable to reach a deal for more than a year.
“The government formation process is likely to be complex and drawn out, hinging on the willingness of party leaders to prioritise national interests over partisan agendas,” Rudolf said.
“The outcome will depend on how long leaders would need to agree on establishing a functioning government that also caters to each one’s political and office-seeking ambitions.”
Not easy under any circumstances, these factors could result in a lengthy delay.
“I would be surprised if we have a government by the end of the year,” Aziz said.