home > by publication type > backgrounders > Iraq’s Parliamentary Elections: An Explainer
Email
| Author: | Lionel Beehner |
|---|
December 7, 2005
The December 15 elections will mark the first time in post-Saddam Iraq when voters will decide the permanent makeup of their government. At stake is the composition of the 275-seat Council of Representatives, formerly the National Assembly. Some 226 political groups and more than 7,000 candidates are running for parliament. Each parliamentarian will be elected for a four-year term. The vote symbolizes the final stage in the U.S.-led process of establishing a functioning, multiparty government in Iraq. Experts say the vote should run smoother than past elections in Iraq due to more sophisticated campaigning techniques, additional polling stations, and the presence of 160,000 U.S. troops.
The election will run under slightly different rules from those that governed January’s single-district, proportional-representation system. Under the new rules, 230 of the 275 seats will be divided among the eighteen provinces and allocated depending on each province’s registered number of voters. The remaining forty-five seats will then be divvied up not by province but by total vote count, including votes cast by Iraqis abroad. These seats are then distributed in two phases: First, any political bloc that does not win seats at the provincial level but meets a certain threshold nationwide will be granted “compensatory” seats. Second, the last remaining seats will be offered to those political blocs that win provincial-level seats to reward the blocs with larger national support.
Experts say this system, devised by the interim parliament, rewards voters who turn out, is proportional, and will produce fewer wasted votes than in previous elections. There was talk of reserving a select number of seats for minority candidates, but the plan was shelved because there was inadequate time to decide which political entities qualified as minorities. There was also criticism by some because the system was adopted only three months before the election and, because of its complexity, most voters do not fully understand it.
The vote symbolizes the final stage in the U.S.-led process of establishing a functioning, multiparty government in Iraq.
Nathan Brown, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says the new voting structure will likely benefit Sunni Arabs because they are the majority in only a few provinces. Under the old rules, even majority-Sunni provinces were underrepresented in parliament because Sunnis boycotted the vote. Under the new rules, the allocation of a select number of seats to the three main Sunni provinces—Salahuddin, Anbar, and Nineveh—virtually assures them at least forty to fifty of the provincial seats. Experts say the new voting system should also benefit independents and smaller political coalitions, whose support tends to be more split among the provinces. Another point that has received scant attention, Brown says, is that this time around voters will be represented by parliamentarians directly from their province, as opposed to nation-wide slates of party candidates. “They are now not merely party representatives but also local representatives and likely to have stronger ties in the province,” he says. The list of candidates will remain confidential until after the election, however, for security reasons.
Yes, but mostly just Iraqi or regional observers. The European Union had planned to send a monitoring delegation but backed out because of security concerns. Instead, three EU lawmakers will be on hand December 15 but not have powers of an official mission. Traditional U.S. election watchdogs like the Carter Center will not be present, but others, including the National Democratic Institute and Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), will be on hand for monitoring purposes. According to the Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq (IECI), more than 70,000 independent election observers have been accredited to monitor 6,200 polling stations across all of Iraq's eighteen provinces—a 50 percent increase from the October referendum.
Any Iraqi over the age of eighteen who's registered to vote. All told, there are roughly 15 million registered voters, including some 1.5 million Iraqi expatriates from fifteen countries around the world. Australia's 20,000 Iraqi voters began casting absentee ballots on December 12.
Organizers predict a high voter turnout. Hussein Hindawi, head of the IECI, recently told reporters he expects turnout to eclipse the October’s constitutional referendum, when roughly two-thirds of Iraq’s 14 million registered voters turned out to vote. Part of the reason is that Sunni Arabs, who comprise at least 20 percent of Iraq’s population, do not intend to boycott these elections, as they did in January’s interim parliamentary elections, when only 58 percent of the electorate voted. Also, news reports suggest several clerics, both Shiite and Sunni, have been urging their worshippers to vote; some have even issued fatwas ordering their followers to cast ballots.
Several clerics, both Shiite and Sunni, have been urging their worshippers to vote; some have even issued fatwas ordering their followers to cast ballots.
Further, because these elections will decide parliament’s makeup for the next four years, there is more at stake, experts say, suggesting that Iraqis will be more inclined to go to the polls. Organizers say the increased number of polling stations and improved media coverage of the various coalitions should boost the turnout as well. In January, Anbar, a heavily Sunni province, only had twenty polling centers. There were 144 on hand for the referendum; now there are more than 160, according to Hindawi. However, experts say a late surge in insurgent violence could deter voters in less secure areas like the Sunni Triangle from turning out December 15.
Once the seats are allocated, the parliament, which will convene fifteen days after the results are certified, selects a presidential council, comprising a president and two vice presidents. This council, which must win two-thirds majority approval, then appoints a prime minister, ostensibly the leader of the largest bloc represented, expected to be the Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance. The prime ministerial post and presidency will likely go to a Kurd and Shiite, experts say, but it’s unclear if the cabinet positions—which the prime minister has thirty days to fill—will be distributed evenly to reflect the parliament’s political breakdown. In addition to approving the council of ministries, the parliament is in charge of deciding policy on legislative, treaty, and budgetary issues, according to Iraq's constitution.
The parliament's other two biggest tasks at hand: forming a constitutional court and amending the constitution. Iraqi moderates have voiced concern that Iraq’s constitutional court may get packed with Islamist-leaning judges. To block such a move, some experts say a coalition of sorts could form among Iraqi secularists in parliament. Sunni Arabs are expected to amend the constitution under Article 140, which was added by Shiite leaders shortly before the referendum to appease Sunni Arab voters. But significantly altering the constitution is a complex process, experts say. Parliament must first form a committee, which then has up to four months to propose a package of constitutional amendments. Next, the parliament must vote on the amendments as a package, not individually, and requires a simple majority. If passed, the bloc of amendments then needs to win approval from the public in a nationwide referendum, similar to the one held on the constitution in October.
Weigh in on this issue by emailing CFR.org.
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1.212.434.9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
The report of this bipartisan Task Force of distinguished leaders and experts represents a strong consensus on the importance of repairing America's immigration policy. It makes the case that maintaining America's political and economic leadership depends on attracting talented and hard-working immigrants, and on securing the country's borders in a smart, effective, and humane way.
This report finds that nuclear weapons will remain a fundamental element of U.S. national security in the near term, and makes recommendations on how to ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the U.S. deterrent nuclear force, prevent nuclear terrorism, and strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
About Independent Task Forces at CFR
Complete list of Task Force reports
Identifying international threats and acting on them may be the most difficult job for U.S. policymakers. This report
provides an actionable road map for managing international threats before they erupt into crises and makes a strong case that preventive action is not a luxury but a necessity.
For more than a decade, the United States has mostly watched from the sidelines as Asian countries organize themselves into an alphabet soup of new multilateral groups. In this report, the authors review the relationship between pan-Asian and trans-Pacific institutions and suggest policy guidelines for a new U.S. approach to this new Asian landscape.
Complete list of Council Special Reports
To request permission to reprint or reuse CFR material, please fill out this permissions request form (PDF), referring to the instructions on page 1.
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.