Dr. Abdulaziz Aliwi Al-Issawi / Academic Specialist in Electoral Affairs
The Iraqi electoral landscape is distinguished by the breadth of its electoral experience, the frequency of political surprises, and the difficulty of accurately predicting outcomes and trajectories, given the shifting variables that govern the mechanisms of alternation of power as determined by the ballot box-whether in voting blocs or political weight.
Following the ratification of the election results by the Federal Supreme Court, and the judiciary’s reaffirmation of the need to adhere to constitutional timelines, responsibility has shifted to the winning political forces. These forces have commenced negotiations to select the new presidencies and form the upcoming government, which -despite potential differences in its formation pathways- will inevitably adhere to the consociational equation. This is due to several decisive factors, foremost among them: the narrow margins among the results of winning forces, the inability of any political party to secure a unilateral majority, and the importance of this equation in fulfilling political entitlements within the constitutional deadlines.
Given the difficulty of predicting the future of Iraq’s political landscape, this paper examines the explanatory variables shaping Iraqi political reality and the corresponding response variables that arise from them, in order to identify the future trajectories dictated by the consociational condition that has long characterized -and continues to shape- the Iraqi political system.
