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Elections on Nov. 11 to the Iraqi Council of Representatives will mark two decades of the country’s electoral process. So far, five elections have been held since 2005, but from a high of an 80 percent turnout in that year, voter participation fell to a low of 43 percent in 2021. The irony is that amid popular disenchantment with the electoral exercises, there is considerable excitement and competition among the politicians vying for public office.

This year there are nearly 8,000 candidates for the 329-member council, including about 2,250 women. Thirty-one coalitions are in the fray, along with 38 political parties and another 75 independent candidates. The coalitions are based on ethno-sectarian identities.

The process of forming a government is time-consuming. After the elections, the coalitions expand their support in the council by shaping alliances across sectarian and ethnic groups. Delays are inevitable. An acting president invites the head of the largest alliance to form the government. When the council convenes, the members need to elect a speaker and two deputy speakers by absolute majority.

After the speaker is elected, there are discussions to select the president, who, after selection, has 15 days to appoint the prime minister. Following this, the prime minister has 30 days to obtain a vote of confidence in his program. Every step in this process is fraught with extensive delays, as venal politicians negotiate for lucrative positions and patronage in exchange for their vote. A Chatham House report says that since 2005, the period from voting to the formation of a government has averaged 224 days.

Already, in the run-up to the elections, each group has witnessed internecine violence and clashes between rivals. Some of the most dangerous fighting has taken place between family members within the Patriot Union of Kurdistan that rules in Sulaymaniyah. Again, within the Shiite coalition, former Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki has accused the incumbent Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani of “promoting normalization with Israel,” compelling the latter to assert that he was instrumental in ensuring that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not attend the Sharm El-Sheikh peace conclave on Gaza.

The greatest source of uncertainty in the complex mosaic of Iraqi politics is Moqtada Al-Sadr. Last year, he set up a new outfit, the National Shiite Movement, signaling his return to politics after his boycott in 2022. However, describing the political order as corrupt, he has distanced himself from the forthcoming elections.

Claiming that the people are in grave danger, Al-Sadr has highlighted the country’s drought, pollution, inferior education, bad economy, and poor electricity services. His calculation could be to await the election results, and if the formation of a government is protracted, project himself as Iraq’s savior and seek power.

Iraq’s election process is also taking place in a difficult regional environment. Al-Sudani’s balanced approach between the US and Iran is now being challenged by Washington. Following the hammer-blows recently delivered to Iran’s military capabilities and its regional alliance system, the US is seeking the disarming of the pro-Iran militia that are part of the Popular Mobilization Forces, said to number about 240,000 fighters. The US has already designated many of these militia as foreign terrorist organizations.

The Iraqi order is in need of major overhaul.

Talmiz Ahmad

Though the disarming of these cadres has not yet been implemented, the Iraqi government has taken no action on a proposal to promote the status of the PMF chief, which would have made him a member of the country’s apex security body.

Again, contrary to the earlier understanding that all US troops in Iraq would be relocated to Irbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, Al-Sudani has now agreed that a few hundred American military advisers will remain in the Ain Al-Asad base in Anbar province to monitor Daesh’s possible resurgence. There are expectations that, after elections, US pressures on the government will increase.

Not that Iran has given up. There have been regular meetings of senior Iraqi and Iranian security officials and political leaders, with Iraq assuring Iran about its commitment to ensuring the latter’s security, while Iran is pushing for the revival of the Shalamcheh-Basra railway project, which would promote trade, pilgrim movement, and tourism.

Turkiye is seeking to retain its influence among Iraqi leaders by increasing water supply from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, thus addressing a major source of anxiety in Iraq.

The electoral competitions in Iraq are largely confined to the political elite and have little resonance among the masses. The latter continue to experience exclusion and privation, with 78 percent of the population having living standards from low to average, a shrinking agricultural economy due to arable land desertification and primitive irrigation practices, and water scarcity due to reduced precipitation and disputes with upstream neighboring states.

As Chatham House commentator Renad Mansour has pointed out, the Iraqi elite “has traded reform for order,” but this is an order that is founded on rampant corruption among the privileged as they freely distribute state resources among themselves and spare little for services, employment, and national development.

The two-decade-old Iraqi order is now in need of major overhaul. Without serious reform, any leader could easily revive the protest movements of 2019 and plunge Iraq once again into an orgy of violence and destruction.

• Talmiz Ahmad is a former Indian diplomat.