Marisa Cochrane Sullivan and James Danly at the Institute For The
Study of War,
Iraq on the eve of elections

This backgrounder provides an update on the political landscape in Iraq on the eve of parliamentary elections. The paper begins with a brief overview of the electoral process. The second part of the backgrounder documents the Shi’a, Sunni, and Kurdish political landscapes. This paper concludes with some considerations on the post-election period of government formation.
Roughly 18.9 million Iraqis are registered to vote in the upcoming election, at more than 10,000 polling centers across the country.8 Each polling center comprises one or more polling stations, of which there are more than 50,000 in total.9 More than 300,000 domestic election observers and observers from various political parties will monitor the election; in addition, eight diplomatic missions and international organizations have been asked to participate as international election monitors.10 Security for the polling sites will be provided by the Iraqi Security Forces, with some planning assistance and enablers provided by U.S. forces.11

In all, 6,172 candidates are vying for 325 seats in the Council of Representatives.12 310 seats are allocated into eighteen electoral constituencies, with each province considered one constituency.13 Eight of the remaining seats are reserved for minorities, including five for Christians, and seven of the remaining seats are compensatory seats that “are awarded to winning lists in proportion to the governorate seats they won in the country as a whole.”14 Candidates are registered to run in a specific province, and voters may only cast a ballot in their home province. Ballots from out-of-country voters are tallied in their home province. The 2009 electoral law stipulates an open list arrangement, allowing voters to select an individual candidate from a political party or a political party itself. Seats are awarded to the candidates with the highest number of votes.15 Once the results are certified and the winning candidates are seated in the Council of Representatives, the alliance-making continues in earnest as political parties vie for key concessions from one another in the distribution of ministerial appointments. This process of government formation will be discussed in greater detail at the end of this paper.