Political system of Iraq – World Countries for Kids

Iraq holds regular, competitive elections, and the nation’s various partisan, ethnic, and religious groups normally enjoy representation in the political system. But democratic governance is hampered in practice by corruption, militias operating outside the purview of the law, and the fragility of formal institutions. In the Kurdistan region, democratic institutions lack the requisite strength to contain the influence of the two ruling parties, each maintaining its own internal security forces, always ready to repress dissidents and peaceful demonstrators. Increasingly, Iran has been able to influence politics in Iraq. State officials and powerful militias regularly infringe upon the rights of citizens through legal and extrajudicial means.

After national elections, the Council of Representatives (CoR) picks the largely ceremonial president, customarily Kurdish, who in turn appoints a PM, conventionally Shia, nominated by the largest bloc in the parliament. The PM, who holds most executive power and forms the government, serves maximum two four-year terms. In October 2022, after a year-long political paralysis, PM Muhammad Shia al-Sudani and his government, backed by the pro-Iran Coordination Framework, were approved by the parliament. In October 2022, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP)–aligned candidate, Abdul Latif Rashid, was elected as president.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is a parliamentary democracy within the federated Republic of Iraq. If the 1991 Gulf War resulted in the birth of the Kurdistan Regional Government, the US invasion in 2003 propelled it into the future. At the beginning of the 2003 invasion, Iraqi Kurdistan served as the northern front of the war, uplifting the status of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). The annihilation of President Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime buttressed Kurdish rights and enabled their economic and political power to grow.

2003 invasion brought with it a unity of purpose among Iraq’s Kurdish parties. They took advantage of their longstanding relationship with Britain and the United States, the primary enforcers of the no-fly zone following the 1991 Gulf War and the two major advocates of regime change in 2003. Although differences continued, Kurdish parties spoke in unison in Baghdad, mainly in the early years following the invasion. They worked to enshrine their fresh powers and rights into Iraq’s 2005 constitution, which recognized Kurdistan as an official region and gave the KRG power to govern independently of Baghdad.

Former long-term KRG president, Masoud Barzani, maintains substantial political influence in Iraqi Kurdistan. In 2019, Masoud’s brother (Nechirvan Barzani), was elected president by the Iraqi Kurdish parliament after the position had remained vacant for nearly two years. Masrour Barzani, Masoud’s son, was appointed and sworn in as PM the same month. Both Barzanis, the current president and prime minister, are members of the KDP.

The 329 members of the Council of Representatives (CoR) are elected every four years from multimember open lists in each province. The October 2021 parliamentary elections were viewed as credible in general by international observers, notwithstanding documented cases of voter and candidate intimidation, journalists being prevented from covering the voting, bribing of voters, arrests of activists calling for an election boycott, and the lowest voter turnout since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime. In Iraqi Kurdistan, the Kurdish parliament is elected via closed party-list proportional representation in a single district. Members serve four-year terms.