Parliamentary elections were held in Iraq on 7 March 2010. The elections decided the 325 members of the Council of Representatives who would elect the prime minister and president. The elections resulted in a partial victory for the Iraqi National Movement, led by former Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, which won 91 seats, making it the largest alliance in the Council. The State of Law Coalition, led by incumbent Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, was the second largest grouping with 89 seats.
Prior to the election, the Supreme Court in Iraq ruled that the existing electoral law/rule was unconstitutional, and a new elections law made changes in the electoral system. On 15 January 2010, the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) banned 499 candidates from the election due to alleged links with the Ba'ath Party. Before the start of the campaign on 12 February 2010, IHEC confirmed that the appeals by banned candidates had been rejected and thus all 456 banned candidates would not be allowed to run for the election.
The turnout was low (62.4%) compared to the elections of 2005 (79.6%). There were numerous allegations of fraud, and a recount of the votes in Baghdad was ordered on 19 April 2010. On 14 May IHEC announced that after 11,298 ballot boxes had been recounted, there was no sign of fraud or violations.
The new parliament opened on 14 June 2010. After months of fraught negotiations, an agreement was reached on the formation of a new government on 11 November.https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/11/10/world/middleeast/AP-ML-Iraq-Politics.html Talabani would continue as president, Al-Maliki would stay on as prime minister and Allawi would head a new security council.
Electoral system
The necessary election law was only passed on 8 November 2009, and the UN Mission in Iraq, which is helping with the elections, estimated that it needed 90 days to plan for the election. The electoral commission asked for a delay from the original date of 15 January. Iraqi Vice President Tariq Al-Hashimi vetoed the election law on 18 November 2009, delaying the election, which was originally scheduled for 21 January.
Prior to the election, the Supreme Court in Iraq ruled that the existing electoral rule was unconstitutional. The parliament therefore set about drafting a new electoral law.
The Iraqi cabinet approved a draft elections law in September 2009. However, it took two months and ten delays for the law to pass in the Council of Representatives. The main areas of dispute concerned the "open list" electoral system and the voters roll in Kirkuk Governorate, which Arab and Turkmen parties alleged had been manipulated by the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq. It also separated each governorate into its own electoral district, instead of the country as a whole being used as one single district.
Open lists UNAMI advised the electoral system was changed to allow people to vote for individuals as well as party lists under the open list form of proportional representation. The last national elections had used a closed list system, but the Iraqi governorate elections of 2009 had used open lists. The move was initially supported by parliamentarians from ISCI, and the most senior Iraqi Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, warned that failure to adopt the open list system would have "negative impacts on the democratic process" and would reduce turnout and aides said he may call for a boycott of the polls if closed lists were used again. In the end, all parties except for the Kurdistani Alliance agreed to support open lists which was adopted.
Kirkuk governorate
In Kirkuk Governorate, it was proposed to use old 2004 electoral rolls. However, Kurds protested about this, given the large number of Kurdish people who had settled there since then. UNAMI then proposed that Kirkuk be divided into two or more ethnic constituencies, with the Kurdish constituency given an automatic quota of 50% plus one. When put to parliament, this proposal was blocked by Arab MPs, causing a deadlock. The issue was referred to the Political Council for National Security, which comprises the President, Prime Minister and party leaders. The Council proposed to combine the electoral rolls from 2004 and 2009, but when this was put to parliament, it was blocked by Kurds. UNAMI then proposed using the 2009 records but revisiting for future elections. When put to a vote the Kurdish MPs walked out, leaving the parliament without a quorum. The final law said that the results in Kirkuk - and other governorates where the rolls were deemed "dubious" - would be provisional, subject to review within the first year by a committee formed out of the electoral commission, parliament, government and UNAMI, which could cancel fraudulent ballots. The law was passed by a vote of 141 to 54, with 80 members absent.
Seat allocation The law increased the size of the council from 275 to 325 members – equal to one seat per 100,000 citizens, as specified in the Constitution of Iraq.Constitution of Iraq, Article 49 As with the December 2005 election, seats will be allocated by governorate with additional "compensatory" seats allocated to those parties whose national share of the vote isn't reflected in the seats won at the governorate level. The votes of Iraqis living abroad would originally have been counted in the compensatory seats, which were reduced from 45 seats to 16 and eight of these 16 seats were allocated to specific national minorities – five for Iraqi Christians and one each for Yazidis, Shabak and Mandaeans.
Iraqi Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi said the small number of compensatory seats discriminated against the estimated 2 million Iraqi refugees, many of whom are Sunni Arabs like al-Hashimi. He demanded that the number of compensatory seats be increased to 15% (48) and went on national television to say he would veto the law if it weren't amended. Sunni Arab parliamentarian Saleh al-Mutlaq said 30 seats should be allocated to Iraqis abroad to reflect their numbers. President Jalal Talabani also supported the increase to 15%, after receiving a letter from Kurdish regional MPs saying their allies from minority groups would be unfairly treated. In the event President Talabani and Vice-President Adel Abdul Mahdi signed the law despite their concerns, but Hashimi followed through his threat and vetoed it.
Parliament asked the Supreme Federal Court for advice, and it issued a statement saying that "all Iraqis, whether they live in the country or outside its borders, should be represented in the parliament." There was some confusion over this statement with the head of the legal affairs committee interpreted this as annulling the veto. However, Ayad al-Samarrai, the parliamentary speaker said the statement was not binding on parliament because it was advice rather a ruling in response to a complaint. Parliament therefore met to consider the law again. Hundreds of supporters of the Prime Minister held demonstrations against the veto in Najaf, Basra and Wasit.
The President of Iraqi Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani, then threatened to boycott the election if the representation of the three provinces in Kurdistan wasn't increased. The provinces had only gained three of the 77 additional seats.
When the Iraqi Parliament met again they amended the law to provide that Iraqis abroad would vote in the governorate they lived before they left the country. The number of seats per governorate was then changed to increase all governorates by a fixed 2.8% over the 2005 population figures – meaning Kurdish areas got more seats but Sunni Arab areas got fewer. Analysts said Hashemi had "played poker and lost" and an MP from a rival Sunni Arab party said he should go and apologize to the governorates that had lost out. Tribal leaders in the Sunni Arab city of Tikrit threatened to call for a poll boycott if the amended law went through and Hashemi said he would veto again.
Internally displaced people will only be allowed to vote where their ration card was issued, a provision that Taha Daraa, MP in Diyala, said discriminated against them and was unconstitutional. He called on the constitutional court to strike down the provision.
Head of IHEC, Faraj Al Haydari, announced that curfew will be imposed and airports closed on the day of elections. The head of the IHEC electoral directorate, Haydar Al Abboudi, said he hoped to announce the results of elections three days later.
The council agreed to increase the number of seats from 275 to 325. With this, the number of seats allocated to each governorate were changed from 2005 elections.
Governorate Seats 2010 Seats 2005 In/de-creased by Percentage in/de-crease Registered voters Votes Cast Al Anbar Governorate 14 9 5 55.6%802,000472,603 Babil Governorate 16 11 5 45.5%961,000586,281 Baghdad Governorate 68 59 9 15.3%4,599,000 2,541,766 Basra Governorate 24 16 8 50.0%1,466,000814,810 Dahuk Governorate 10 7 3 42.9%574,000424,715 Dhi Qar Governorate 18 12 6 50.0%993,000572,177 Diyala Governorate 13 10 3 30.0%840,000 502,896 Erbil Governorate 14 13 1 7.7%917,000680,408 Karbala Governorate 10 6 4 66.7%564,000333,434 Kirkuk Governorate 12 9 3 33.3%787,000556,384 Maysan Governorate 10 7 3 42.9%561,000272,818 Muthanna Governorate 7 5 2 40.0%379,000229,141 Najaf Governorate 12 8 4 50.0%696,000411,424 Nineveh Governorate 31 19 12 63.2%1,702,0001,054,798 Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate 11 8 3 37.5%619,000373,339 Saladin Governorate 12 8 4 50.0%696,000 488,865 Sulaymaniyah Governorate 17 15 2 13.3%1,098,000833,631 Wasit Governorate 11 8 3 37.5%638,000 376,922 Compensatory seats 7 45 -38 -84.4% Minorities 8 0 8 100% Total 325 275 50 18.2% 18,892,00011,526,412
Coalitions The United Iraqi Alliance, made up primarily of religious Shi'ite parties, won 128 out of 275 seats in the previous election and was the largest party in the parliament. The list split into two lists for this election: the State of Law Coalition of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the National Iraqi Alliance, which included most of the other parties. In total 160 regular parties as well as 36 independents and 10 minority parties and candidates took part in the election, see here for a full list of the participants.
National Iraqi Alliance (NIA) – List 316 The National Iraqi Alliance (NIA or INA) is a coalition of mainly Shi'a parties. It was first mooted in August 2009 and is made up of the principal remaining components of the United Iraqi Alliance: The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) and affiliated Badr Organization, the Sadr Movement, Ex-Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari (who became the group's chairman) and his National Reform Trend (Islah), the Islamic Fadhila Party and an Islamic Dawa Party – Iraq Organisation (Tanzim al-Iraq) breakaway faction: the Islamic Dawa Party – Domestic Faction (Tanzim al-Dakhli) headed by Abdul Karim al-Anizi. ISCI was reported to have offered to split the coalition's seats four ways: 25% to ISCI and Badr, 25% to the Sadrists, 25% to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party and 25% to minor parties and independents. However, Maliki demanded half the seats – reflecting the results of the Iraqi governorate elections of 2009, which were won by Maliki's State of Law Coalition – and a guarantee of another term as prime minister., quoting Azzaman He also wanted Sunni Arab parties like the Awakening movements to be included as primary members of the coalition to form what his spokesman termed "a truly national alliance". In September, the coalition was formally announced without the Islamic Dawa Party., quoting Al-Zaman Despite its religious Shi'a character, the alliance claims to represent all of Iraq and it also includes some secular parties such as former Oil Minister Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress and Sunni parties such as Hamid Hayes' Tribes of Iraq Coalition, an al-Anbar Awakening Council splinter group.
State of Law Coalition (SLC) – List 337