{"id":462196,"date":"2025-12-21T12:47:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T12:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/462196\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T12:47:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T12:47:14","slug":"iraqs-political-future-in-limbo-as-factions-vie-for-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/462196\/","title":{"rendered":"Iraq’s political future in limbo as factions vie for power"},"content":{"rendered":"

BAGHDAD — Political factions in Iraq have been maneuvering since the parliamentary election<\/a> more than a month ago to form alliances that will shape the next government.<\/p>\n

The November election didn’t produce a bloc with a decisive majority, opening the door to a prolonged period of negotiations.<\/p>\n

The government that eventually emerges will be inheriting a security situation that has stabilized in recent years, but it will also face a fragmented parliament, growing political influence by armed factions, a fragile economy, and often conflicting international and regional pressures, including the future of Iran-backed armed groups.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s party took the largest number of seats in the election. Al-Sudani positioned himself in his first term as a pragmatist focused on improving public services and managed to keep Iraq on the sidelines of regional conflicts. <\/p>\n

While his party is nominally part of the Coordination Framework, a coalition of Iran-backed Shiite parties that became the largest parliamentary bloc, observers say it\u2019s unlikely that the Coordination Framework will support al-Sudani\u2019s reelection bid.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe choice for prime minister has to be someone the Framework believes they can control and doesn’t have his own political ambitions,\u201d said Sajad Jiyad, an Iraqi political analyst and fellow at The Century Foundation think tank.<\/p>\n

Al-Sudani came to power in 2022 with the backing of the Framework, but Jiyad said that he believes now the coalition \u201cwill not give al-Sudani a second term as he has become a powerful competitor.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only Iraqi prime minister to serve a second term since 2003 was Nouri al-Maliki, first elected in 2006. His bid for a third term failed after being criticized for monopolizing power and alienating Sunnis and Kurds.<\/p>\n

Jiyad said that the Coordination Framework drew a lesson from Maliki \u201cthat an ambitious prime minister will seek to consolidate power at the expense of others.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that the figure selected as Iraq’s prime minister must generally be seen as acceptable to Iran and the United States \u2014 two countries with huge influence over Iraq \u2014 and to Iraq\u2019s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.<\/p>\n

In the election, Shiite alliances and lists \u2014 dominated by the Coordination Framework parties \u2014 secured 187 seats, Sunni groups 77 seats, Kurdish groups 56 seats, in addition to nine seats reserved for members of minority groups.<\/p>\n

The Reconstruction and Development Coalition, led by al-Sudani, dominated in Baghdad, and in several other provinces, winning 46 seats.<\/p>\n

Al-Sudani’s results, while strong, don’t allow him to form a government without the support of a coalition, forcing him to align the Coordination Framework to preserve his political prospects. <\/p>\n

Some saw this dynamic at play earlier this month when al-Sudani’s government retracted a terror designation<\/a> that Iraq had imposed on the Lebanese Hezbollah militant group and Yemen\u2019s Houthi rebels \u2014 Iran-aligned groups that are allied with Iraqi armed factions \u2014 just weeks after imposing the measure, saying it was a mistake.<\/p>\n

The Coalition Framework saw its hand strengthened by the absence from the election of the powerful Sadrist movement led by Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr, which has been boycotting the political system since being unable to form a government after winning the most seats in the 2021 election.<\/p>\n

Hamed Al-Sayed, a political activist and official with the National Line Movement, an independent party that boycotted the election, said that Sadr\u2019s absence had a \u201ccentral impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt reduced participation in areas that were traditionally within his sphere of influence, such as Baghdad and the southern governorates, leaving an electoral vacuum that was exploited by rival militia groups,\u201d he said, referring to several parties within the Coordination Framework that also have armed wings.<\/p>\n

Groups with affiliated armed wings won more than 100 parliamentary seats, the largest showing since 2003.<\/p>\n

Sunni forces, meanwhile, sought to reorganize under a new coalition called the National Political Council, aiming to regain influence lost since the 2018 and 2021 elections.<\/p>\n

The Kurdish political scene remained dominated by the traditional split between the Kurdistan Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan parties, with ongoing negotiations between the two over the presidency. <\/p>\n

By convention, Iraq\u2019s president is always a Kurd, while the more powerful prime minister is Shiite and the parliamentary speaker Sunni.<\/p>\n

Parliament is required to elect a speaker within 15 days of the Federal Supreme Court\u2019s ratification of the election result, which occurred on Dec. 14.<\/p>\n

The parliament should elect a president within 30 days of its first session, and the prime minister should be appointed within 15 days of the president\u2019s election, with 30 days allotted to form the new government.<\/p>\n

The incoming government will face major economic and political challenges.<\/p>\n

They include a high level of public debt \u2014 more than 90 trillion Iraqi dinars ($69 billion) \u2014 and a state budget that remains reliant on oil for about 90% of revenues, despite attempts to diversify, as well as entrenched corruption.<\/p>\n

But perhaps the most delicate question will be the future of the Popular Mobilization Forces, a coalition of militias that formed to fight the Islamic State group as it rampaged across Iraq more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n

It was formally placed under the control of the Iraqi military in 2016 but in practice still operates with significant autonomy. After the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 sparked the devastating war in Gaza, some armed groups within the PMF launched attacks on U.S. bases in the region in retaliation for Washington\u2019s backing of Israel.<\/p>\n

The U.S. has been pushing for Iraq to disarm Iran-backed groups \u2014 a difficult proposition, given the political power that many of them hold and Iran\u2019s likely opposition to such a step.<\/p>\n

Two senior Iraqi political officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to comment publicly, said that the United States had warned against selecting any candidate for prime minister who controls an armed faction and also cautioned against letting figures associated with militias control key ministries or hold significant security posts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest issue will be how to deal with the pro-Iran parties with armed wings, particularly those… which have been designated by the United States as terrorist entities,\u201d Jiyad said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAGHDAD — Political factions in Iraq have been maneuvering since the parliamentary election more than a month ago…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":462197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[210787,97,347,64,90,57,556,373,50,80,365,103,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-462196","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-210787","9":"tag-2024-2025-mideast-wars","10":"tag-article","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-elections","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-islam","15":"tag-israel-hamas-war","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-politics","18":"tag-religion","19":"tag-world","20":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115757635616664856","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}