Public faith in Iraq’s electoral system has steadily declined in recent years. Voter turnout for the country’s 2018 parliamentary elections stood at 44.5 per cent – just over half the number that voted in 2005. In October 2019, public demonstrations spread across Iraq demanding that political elites cease distributing control of government ministries along sectarian lines and the end of cronyism, which is viewed as synonymous with Iraq’s post-occupation political culture.
The adoption of the single non-transferable vote system in November 2020 is the most recent effort to reduce the influence of parties and factions in government formation.
Iraq has regularly held elections since 2005. Yet the process of forming a government once the votes are counted has consistently produced the same outcome: a government of national unity. While this reflected the results of the initial 2005 election, subsequent government formation processes have not. This disconnect between the result of an election and the formation of government is at the heart of frequent and ongoing demonstrations. Public pressure has focused on the electoral system and power-sharing bargains that tend to favour the governing elite – bargains that could in theory be reached without holding elections altogether. However, the government formation process remains untouched.
Reform of the electoral system has been a consistent feature in Iraq since the occupation. Each national poll has been followed by the introduction of new electoral legislation. However, these changes – driven in part by the courts and in part by political factions – have had little to no impact on government formation. The adoption of the single non-transferable vote (SNTV) system in November 2020 is the most recent effort to reduce the influence of parties and factions in government formation. The new voting system is intended to make election results and seat allocation more transparent. While it is still untested, this approach is likely to favour independent political actors rather than parties, thereby increasing the number of groups engaged in the necessary bargaining to form a future government.
In systems dominated by strong political parties, individual candidates are more dependent on these organizations for their selection and campaign support. This boosts the role of parties when forming governing coalitions and gives them more control over their members – concentrating power in the hands of party leaders and managers. In a political process where parties are weaker – as the case may be under Iraq’s new SNTV system – elected candidates are more likely to have their own individual mandate and objectives. As a result, forming a coalition will include a wider range of actors and securing each person’s participation and loyalty will potentially be more difficult.
This paper examines the impacts of various changes in Iraq’s election laws since 2005, as well as the governments that were formed following each election. The paper then reviews the latest election law, the current voting system, and provisions for seat allocation to political parties and the likely impact on upcoming elections, scheduled for October 2021. The analysis shows that the voting system and the seat allocation system are effectively divorced from government formation except for one component: the number of seats each party can bargain with.
