November 13, 2025

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Elections Likely to Advance Iraqi Stability

(AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

U.S. and global officials looked to Iraq’s national elections on Tuesday to continue calming the region after two years of warfare sparked by the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. Counterbalancing the efforts of the Trump team, Iran, which exercises significant influence in Iraq, has consistently sought to steer Iraq to its strategic advantage. In that context, on Tuesday, Iraqi voters cast their ballots in the sixth national election for a 329-member unicameral National Assembly. Many Iraqis have expressed resignation that the elections will not offer solutions for problems such as official corruption and arbitrary rule by an entrenched elite. But many others anticipated that the next full-term government could continue Iraq’s gradual but steady evolution toward stability and integration into regional politics. Results released Wednesday show the electoral list headed by incumbent Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani won more seats than any other bloc, putting him in a strong position to gain another term. Once results are certified, the elected Assembly will begin what has typically been a months-long process to select a governing team. Under a longstanding informal agreement, the Assembly will name a Shia Arab as Prime Minister with executive power, an ethnic Kurd as President, whose role is primarily symbolic, and a Sunni Arab as Speaker of the Assembly.

In the run-up to the election, global diplomats painted an optimistic picture, arguing Iraq has decisively crossed through the years of inter-communal conflict that followed the 2003 U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime, and the severe challenge from an Islamic State (ISIS) offensive in 2014. There have been six changes of government since the U.S. invasion, all of which have been “constitutional and peaceful,” according to Iraqi leaders. Some political factions have emerged that cut across sectarian and ethnic lines. Many Iraqis credit Sudani for balancing relations with two powers, Iran and the U.S., which remain at odds, and for ushering in a construction boom and political stability. Sudani’s attendance at the October 13 Sharm el-Sheikh summit on Gaza was seen as a significant sign that Iraq is re-entering the regional fold, as both Arab leaders and Washington press Baghdad to distance itself from Tehran further.

Experts and global officials assert that voter turnout can be a more significant harbinger of Iraq’s trajectory than the vote's outcome, in which more than 7,760 candidates, nearly a third of them women, competed for 329 seats. The candidates competed on 31 different alliances — also known as lists — comprising 38 individual political parties. On Wednesday, the Iraqi Higher Electoral Commission (IHEC) announced that voter turnout surpassed 56 percent of the country’s 21 million registered voters. That figure far exceeded expectations, easing fears that widespread disillusionment with the political process might drive turnout below the record low of 41 percent in 2021. Some predictions of low voter turnout were based on an election boycott by supporters of the prominent cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose faction prevailed in the 2021 election but was outmaneuvered by his Shia rivals in the post-election government formation process. On the other hand, voter turnout could have been even larger if another nine to 11 million Iraqis of voting age had registered. Under the law, 25 percent of seats are reserved for women, while nine are allocated for religious minorities. The applicable electoral law favors larger slates (or coalitions), and only 75 independent candidates ran.

U.S., regional, and Iraqi attention has long focused on whether Sudani would garner enough support to prevail in the post-election negotiations and secure a second term. U.S. officials, in particular, see Sudani as protecting U.S. interests, including working cooperatively to prevent any resurgence of the Islamic State or other militant groups. U.S. President Donald Trump’s team accepts that Sudani needs to engage Iraq’s larger neighbor, Iran, constructively, but it has counted on him to reduce Iran’s ability to use non-state actors to pressure Iraq’s central government. Trump’s team is expected to exert U.S. political influence to ensure Sudani beats back an anticipated challenge from his key Shia competitor, Nouri al-Maliki, and stays in office. Washington blames Maliki for blindly pursuing pro-Iranian policies during his time as Prime Minister from 2006-2014. His actions alienated Iraq’s Sunni Arab community and paved the way for the ISIS offensive in 2014, which forced Washington to rush troops back to Iraq to prevent the terrorist group from capturing Baghdad itself.

Experts will most closely examine how the different Shia Arab-led electoral slates rank in the final vote count. While these groups compete vigorously with each other, they generally band together to ensure Shia dominance of the Baghdad government. Although both Sudani and Maliki are part of a broad post-2021 Shia coalition known as the Coordination Framework, the two leaders headed competing slates in this election. Sudani’s Reconstruction and Development Coalition brought together seven political entities, including veteran pro-Washington politician Ayad Allawi as well as independents and tribal figures. The slate campaigned on improving basic services, balancing relations with Tehran and Washington, and continuing policies that brought Baghdad’s construction boom. Results released Wednesday indicate that Sudani’s slate might have won as many as 50 seats, including first place in Baghdad province and several Shia-dominated provinces, and second place (behind Sunni Arab lists) in some Sunni Arab-inhabited provinces. However, Sudani’s ultimate fate might hinge on the continued loyalty of the parties and individuals on his electoral list, some of whom will be lured by Sudani’s rivals to defect.

Maliki heads the State of Law bloc, which draws strength from hardline Shias sympathetic to Iran and skeptical of relations with Trump’s team and the U.S. military. Maliki’s opportunity to retake the Prime Minister’s office will likely depend on whether he can obtain the support from other Shia lists loosely under the Coordination Framework umbrella. These lists include the National State Forces Alliance led by Ammar al-Hakim, who heads the Hikmah Movement, formerly the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. Hakim’s faction was closely aligned with Iran for several years after the U.S. invasion, but it has gradually transitioned to a moderate, nationalist Shia grouping. Two other Shia lists are headed by parliamentary incumbents who command Shia militia groups: Hadi al-Amiri, head of the Badr Organization list (the same name as his militia), and Qais al-Khazali, head of the Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq militia (AAH), led the Sadiqoun List. AAH is designated by the U.S. as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). As politicians, Amiri and Khazali have tried to present themselves as nationalists and not surrogates of Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Quds Force (IRGC-QF). Despite pre-election warnings from Washington, the political arm of one Iran-backed armed faction, Kata’ib Hezbollah (KH), reportedly plans to assert itself in the post-election government formation, likely in support of Maliki. KH has attacked U.S. forces in Iraq on numerous occasions over the past decade, often receiving U.S. strikes in retaliation.

Even if major Shia blocs do not rally around him, Sudani could utilize an alternative pathway to retain his post. He might be able to assemble enough Sunni Arab, Kurdish, and independent votes in the Assembly to win another term. The electoral lists of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) will likely control enough seats to wield significant influence in the selection process. Still, the political weight of the two main Kurdish parties might be reduced by their failure thus far to form a unified administration in the Kurdistan Regional Government, that runs northern Iraq, more than a year after the October 2024 elections for the separate parliament there.

Global officials expect Washington and Tehran, and possibly also Ankara to a lesser extent, will try to influence the post-election government selection process. Iranian leaders, already reeling from major regional setbacks over the past year, hope to stabilize Iran’s geopolitical position by challenging the Trump team’s influence in Iraq. Yet, Tehran’s broader setbacks have, in turn, reduced its ability to affect political outcomes in Baghdad. A few days before the election, Iran’s IRGC-QF commander Esmail Qaani visited Iraq on a mission limited to trying to forge unity among the major Shia factions rather than to urge Baghdad to distance itself from Washington.

The Trump team, by contrast, seeks to press its advantage to reduce Iranian leverage in Iraq further. In addition to expressing its clear preference for another Sudani term, Trump has set “red lines,” including the complete exclusion of KH politicians from the next cabinet. Signaling intent to influence the post-election government-formation process, if necessary, Trump last month named a special envoy to Iraq, Mark Savaya —the first such appointment in two decades. Observers suggest that Savaya’s focus is not only to deny Maliki or another pro-Iranian candidate the prime ministership, but to urge Baghdad to demobilize Iran-aligned militias such as KH that resist state authority. Sudani has sought Trump’s backing for another term by suggesting he is an ideal partner, writing in an op-ed in the New York Post last week that: “…while certain factions hold ideological ties to Iran,” Iraq has “ensured that their activities remain strictly within the bounds of state authority.” He has also linked the reining in of the Iran-aligned militias to a full withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq by a mutually agreed deadline of September 2026.