Iraq gained independence in 1932, after being a League of Nations mandate under British administration since 1920. The coup d’état in 1958 led to an end of the monarchy and a republic was established. From 1979 to 2003 the country was ruled by President Saddam Hussein. Until 2003 Iraq remained a de facto Arab nationalist and socialist one-party state. In 2003 the government of Saddam Hussein was overthrown by the US-led invasion. The United States claimed they invaded the country because of the presence of weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical and biological weapons, and secondly to introduce democracy. However, these weapons of destruction were never found.

Saddam Hussein was captured by American forces in December 2003, and executed by an Iraqi military court in 2006. His party, the Baath Party, was dissolved. Many Baathists, such as the former army and intelligence officers, later joined IS and have reportedly played a significant part in its rise. Elections were held in 2005 and 2010, while the country seemed to have become more stable. This image quickly changed with the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), a Sunni Arab rebellious group that was formed following a merger of different Iraqi insurgent groups.

In 2013 the ISI started expanding rapidly to parts outside Iraq. The group adopted the name of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in 2013 and proclaimed itself an Islamic State (IS) in January 2014. The militant group has spread over central and northern Iraq and Syria, leaving a trail of death and destruction. In response to this threat, a US-led coalition of regional and Western powers started a campaign of airstrikes in 2014. ISIS was defeated over several years. Leaving a country devastated behind. Iraq is plagued by sectarian violence, corruption and political infight. The 2018 elections yielded surprising results, but the Abdul-Madhi government had been unable to gain the trust of Iraq’s citizens.

Ongoing 2019 protests
Mass demonstrations erupted in Baghdad on the 1st of October and rapidly spread to every major city in Southern Iraq. Dominated by young people (almost 3 in 5 Iraqi’s are under 25) the protesters are overwhelmingly Shiites. But since the beginning, these protesters have called for a complete overhaul of the Shiite-dominated regime that has ruled the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein, charging it with being corrupt, incompetent, and fatally infected by sectarianism, Islamism and Iranian penetration. The demands of the protest movement were also clear: sovereignty, independence and clean government.

Instead of starting a conversation with the protest movement and initiating reform, the government almost immediately chose the path of brutal repression. Since then, hundreds of people have been killed, abducted, tortured or disappeared. Around 20,000 have been injured. Iraq’s political elite has been mostly silent about the suppression of the protesters. Few spoke out and joined. However, in December of 2019 the mounting pressure caused Abdul-Mahdi to resign. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Iraq in March of 2020, protests were temporarily interrupted, but grew in size again in the course of 2021.

In an effort to calm those taking to the streets, newly appointed Prime Minister Al-Kadhimi announced early elections, which eventually took place on October 10, 2021. They were rescheduled because Iraq’s Independent High Election Commission (IHEC) needed more time to organise the polls. People have continued to take to the streets since then, demanding the entire political system to be dismantled. The unrest is unsurprising, considering the dire state of Iraq’s economy. Iraq is heavily dependent on its oil exports, which make up 90-95% of the state’s income. The combination of a sharp drop in oil prices and COVID-19 restrictions has proven lethal for its population.

2021 parliamentary elections
The latest elections in Iraq had a chaotic run-up. The delay to October, and a boycott by the Sadrist movement in July 2021 resulted in several other parties questioning the possibility of free and fair elections. However, on August 27, Sadr decided to reverse his boycott and did eventually take part in the October elections. Iraq has an electorate of 22,116,368 eligible voters, of which 9,077,779 voted – a turnout of 41,05% (IHEC). This low turnout reflects the low legitimacy of the current political system in Iraq, as many people do not feel that voting would change anything to the current political and economic crises.

IHEC announced results on October 11 – these were ratified by the Iraqi Supreme Court on December 27, 2021. The Sadrist political bloc received 73 seats, becoming the largest party by a wide margin. The Fatah alliance, affiliated to pro-Iran militias, won 17 seats, losing many after the 48 they acquired in the 2018 elections. The Taqaduum party, Sunni-affiliated, won 37 seats, becoming second-largest in parliament. The Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) won 31 seats. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan won 17, one less than in 2018. An also interesting result was the seat-win of the Imtidad movement, organised by civil activists after the 2019 protests. They won 9 seats in Parliament.

Post-election deadlock
After the elections, Iraqi parliament was divided into two opposing factions: the Saving the Homeland alliance (SH) and the Coordination Framework (CF). SH consists of the the Shiite Sadrist movement, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Sunni Taqadoom party. The CF includes the Shia State of Law and Fatah alliances, as well as some small Sunni parties and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

Breaking the post-2003 tradition of consensus coalitions, Sadr wanted to form a majority government with the SH. This would exclude the powerful parties affiliated to the Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces), a conglomerate of Iran-loyal militias that have become forceful after the defeat of IS. These are part of the CF. Inside and outside parliament the Hashd has a major influence on Iraqi politics. As the election of a President needs the approval of two-thirds of MP’s, the CF has been able to block all proceedings in Sadr’s attempt to form a coalition. This has completely paralysed the Iraqi parliament, blocking important food and energy security bills from passing into law.

Historically, this process has always been troublesome, as various Iraqi parties attempt to gain maximal power from coalition negotiations. Power in Iraq often comes in the form of a ministry, or powerful political appointments, ensuring financial benefits for their own constituencies and leverage over rival parties. In this set-up, Iraq has been entrenched in “consensus coalitions of national unity”. These foster clientelism and have completely bankrupted and crippled the Iraqi state.

Kurdistan
In 1974, the Kurdistan region in Northern Iraq was granted limited autonomy by the Iraqi government. However, Iraq continuously tried to get control of the area by military interventions up until 1991, after which a no-fly zone was established above the area in 1991. One year later, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) was formed by the Kurdistan National Assembly. Iraqi Kurdistan consists of the governorates of Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Duhok and Halabja. A period of fragile peace started after the no-fly zone was introduced. The Kurdish people started to rebuild their society creating a parliamentary democracy.

The main political parties – the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) worked together during the 1990s. However, power-sharing arrangements between the two failed, erupting into a civil war from 1994 to 1997. The election in 1996 resulted in the creation of two separate Kurdish states: one state-based in Sulaymaniyah controlled by the PUK, while the other state-based in Erbil and controlled by the KDP. In 2005, Iraq officially recognized the autonomous Kurdistan Region by a referendum. The two administrations were unified into one government and the Kurdish parliament established the Kurdistan Region Presidency (KRP) as an institution.

Masoud Barzani was elected as the first President of Iraqi Kurdistan in January 2005 and was re-elected in 2009. Kurdistan suffered from the ISIS advancement in Northern Iraq from 2014 onwards. Barzani’s term was prolonged during the war. The Peshmerga proved to be an effective force against the rapid advance of ISIS. The Kurdish government reconquered lost territory and even consolidated non-Kurdish territory in Iraq. In the political and military vacuum that existed in Northern Iraq in the aftermath of the ISIS conflict, Barzani called for an independence referendum, causing major international upheaval.

Although the central government in Baghdad didn’t acknowledge the legitimacy of the referendum, the Kurdish government went ahead with a vote in September 2017. An overwhelming majority of 92.73% voted for independence. However, Barzani was hesitant to declare Kurdistan independent. No country supported the referendum. In the meantime, Bagdad started a military offensive to reclaim the non-Kurdish territory in Northern Iraq. Barzani eventually resigned as president, leaving the independence movement without a direction and the region without a president until regional elections in late 2018. Nechirvan Barzani has assumed office as president in June of 2019.