NEW GENERATION, NEW PERSPECTIVES

The Iraqi High Election Commission announced the preliminary results of early parliamentary elections held on October 10, 2021. During a press conference in Baghdad, the head of the body announced that the process of manual counting of votes at 3681 polling stations was over and the results match those obtained from electronic voting.

Winners and ranters

According to preliminary estimates, the Alliance for Reforms (Sa'irun) led by the religious leader Muqtada al-Sadr won the election and took 73 seats in the country's parliament.

Distribution of seats among the main political parties and blocs is as follows. Taqaddum (Progress) party led by former speaker of the parliament and Sunni politician Muhammad al-Halbusi has 37 mandates. Independent candidates won 35 seats, while the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) led by Massoud Barzani and the State of Law coalition led by former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki – 33 mandates each. The Fatah Alliance led by the leader of the Popular Mobilisation Forces coalition, Hadi al-Amiri, and the Kurdistani coalition, which includes the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) led by B. Talabani and the Movement for Change (Gorran), each received 16 mandates.

The rest of the political movements received a relatively small number of votes.

At the same time, parliamentary elections organised by the administration of Iraqi Kurdistan were held in the north of the country. According to results, KDP received 33, PUK – 16, New Generation movement – 9, Islamic Unity Party – 4, and Kurdistan Justice Group (Komal) – one seat only.

The outcome of the vote sparked serious debates both in Iraq and beyond. Due to protests and popular discontent growing over the past two years, the turnout in the last vote was only 41%. This expectedly led to a decline in public confidence in the election bodies and the government. Meanwhile, the main topic of discussion is the results of elections themselves. As in 2018, the coalition of Muqtada al-Sadr also took the first place according to preliminary estimates, increasing the number of parliamentary mandates from 54 to 73.

The elections were also successful for progressists of Taqaddum run by Muhammad al-Halbusi, one of Iraq's brightest young politicians, which won 37 seats in the parliament.

Several losing Shiite politicians issued a joint statement on electoral fraud. But, apparently, the overwhelming majority are satisfied with the voting results.

Peculiarities

The total number of voters in Iraq is almost 25 million of 40 million population of the country. However, just over 10 million people cast their votes, which is considered a rather low indicator. Moreover, it is the lowest since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Last parliamentary elections for the 329-seat parliament of Iraq were held in 2018. Then Sa'irun of Muqtada al-Sadr received 54 seats. It was followed by the Hashd al-Shaabi coalition with 42 mandates. But since the attempt to form a new government failed as usual, only after the personal appeal of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who occupies a special place in Iraqi politics, a technocratic coalition government headed by Adil Abdul Mahdi was formed in Iraq.

However, in October 2019, protests against the Abdul Mahdi cabinet began as a result of popular discontent with rampant corruption, as well as the shortage of social services, drinking water and electricity. While the main slogans of protesters showed their outrage at the quality of social services and corruption, the protests had an unambiguous association with the ongoing US-Iran rivalry. Thus, anti-Iranian rhetoric followed the later stages of the protest movement. But anti-Iranian sentiments in Iraq and its being a battleground for foreign powers have worried and outraged many people in recent years, including a large number of Shiite politicians.

The new government, formed in February 2020 after a protest movement has not been able to change the situation in the country. The former Iraqi security minister, Mustafa al-Kazimi, elected as a new prime minister, showed himself more in regional politics, leaving internal problems unresolved. Therefore, his government had no other choice but announce new elections.

Thus, a total of 109 political parties and 3,249 candidates represented in 21 coalitions and independent candidates competed for 329 seats (320 allocated for elections, and 9 for representatives of minorities. R+) in the 5th parliamentary elections held on October 10.

Remarkably, Hashd al-Shaabi coalition considered close to Iran lost the election. Fatah led by Hadi al-Amiri won only 16 parliamentary seats (42 in 2018). Although the coalition run by the former prime minister and another pro-Iranian politician Nouri al-Maliki increased the number of mandates from 25 to 33, in general, this result indicates a significant loss for pro-Iranian forces in Iraq. In particular, for Hashd al-Shaabi, which was supposed to become the ‘national guard’ of Iraq.

Instead, al-Sadr’s Alliance for Reforms received an additional 19 seats in the parliament. To understand the reason for these changes, it is necessary to review the chronology of events over the past four years.

Down with external influence!

Interestingly, the October 10 vote showed that Iraqi people preferred to support the forces advocating for the preservation of the country's independence and fighting against external influence. After previous elections, al-Sadr made an attempt to distance himself from Iran by drawing closer to Saudi Arabia. Thus, in 2018 he visited Riyadh and met with the crown prince of the kingdom, Mohammad bin Salman, who is a key figure in the country. After that, relations between Iraq and Saudi Arabia softened and contributed to the development of diplomatic relations. Later, Riyadh was visited several times by the president and prime minister of Iraq –  Barham Saleh and Mustafa al-Kazimi. It’s also reported that the Iraqi government acted as the main mediator in the process of normalising relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. In addition, al-Kazimi has made significant contribution to the restoration of trilateral alliance with Jordan and Egypt, as well as through demonstrating his intention to restore the role of Iraq in regional politics. He also called for the withdrawal of American troops from the country and a decrease in Washington's influence in Iraq.

Iraqi voters preferred al-Sadr. It seems that they see ridding the country of external influence as the most relevant task of the present time. It is also interesting that al-Maliki’s State of Law coalition left Hashd al-Shaabi behind. Despite his earlier closeness with Iran, al-Maliki achieved some independence for Iraq. However, due to growing corruption, poor governance and the ISIS success in the country, al-Maliki was removed from office in 2014, also thanks to Tehran's approval. Now he is back in the parliament.

Another difference of the October 10 elections is that for the first time in many years, the winning party announced its intention to form a new government through political talks and consultation with the rest of the blocs to secure their support. This intention was stated personally by Muqtada al-Sadr.

Since Iraq is a parliamentary republic, political force authorised to form a government must secure the support of more than half of the parliament, that is, not less than 165 deputies. In other words, now al-Sadr will have to get the consent of several parties to form a new coalition government.

Probably one of the main features of the recent elections is the results in the Kurdish region, since Kurds occupy an important place in the current political system of Iraq, which emerged after the US invasion. Under this system, a Kurdish politician is elected president of Iraq, while the prime minister and speaker of parliament are selected among the representatives of the country's Shiite majority and Sunni minority, respectively.

Kurdish parties of Iraq also increased the number of parliamentary seats after this election. Thus, Democratic Party of Kurdistan with Massoud Barzani, which leads the Kurdish administration in Erbil, won 33 seats, as opposed to 25 seats won in the 2018 election.

At the same time, Barzani's key rival, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan established by the former president Jalal Talabani, lost votes. Allied with the Gorran movement, Talabani supporters received only 16 mandates this time.

Another political force that lost its votes in the early parliamentary elections was that of the Turkmen minority of Iraq. Although they applied for the first time presenting a single list of candidates, the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF) still secured one seat in the parliament. In 2018, though, ITF and Turkmen blocs received 3 and 5 seats, respectively.

Outcome of the latest early parliamentary elections in Iraq show that Iraqis are tired of almost twenty years of chaos, political turmoil, internal strife, struggle of foreign powers for influence, and corruption. Their support to relatively large forces in the recent elections will likely speed up the process of forming a new government led by relatively young political leaders (al-Sadr was born in 1974, Halbusi in 1981, R+), who support Iraq’s independence and are not wrapped up in political intrigues and corruption. This is indicative of clarity expected in the Iraqi political situation in the near future.