IRAQ 2021 Parliamentary Elections and the Crisis of Government Formation

On 10 October 2021, the sixth parliamentary elections were held in Iraq to elect 329 members of the Council of Representatives (CoR). A total of 3325 candidates, including 21 political coalitions, 108 political parties and 789 independent candidates competed for office (IHEC, 2021). The elections per se were conducted peacefully, but Iraqi citizens’ enthusiasm for elections was significantly low. The voter turnout – officially standing at only 43.54% according to Independent High Election Committee’s (IHEC) official election figures – was the lowest since the country’s first parliamentary elections in 2005 (IHEC, 2021). The elections resulted in 138 seats taken by members of coalitions, 148 seats by members of political parties and 43 seats by independent candidates (IHEC, 2021). What was remarkable about the results was a relative victory of the Sadrist Movement led by Shi’a cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, whose seats at the CoR increased from 54 in 2018 to 73, and a surprise defeat to some of the established political forces, particularly a pro-Iran Shi’a force of the Fateh Alliance who saw a sharp decline of seats from 48 to 16, thereby upsetting the existing political balance within Iraqi political elites (Mansour & Stewart-Jolley, 2021).

    As will be mentioned later in this report, the Iraqis had to wait almost one year to finally witness the formation of the government in October 2022. Hence, in order to incorporate the post-election parliamentary dynamics into analysis, primarily the impact of the initially ratified election results on the (delayed) formation of the government, the publication of this electoral report had to be waited until this parliamentary milestone.