2022: Iraq’s Challenges Ahead

(Photo: Hadi Mizban/AP)

Iraq begins 2022 with one of the most challenging hurdles in its political process: government formation. After months of political parties contesting the election results, through both formal procedures and protests, the Federal Supreme Court finally ratified the elections results on December 27, 2021. Despite the new parliament convening on January 9, 2022, and electing a speaker and two deputies, it will likely take another few months before a prime minister and cabinet is sworn in. The longer government formation takes, the more challenges Iraq will face, without leadership, in 2022. 

As the winners celebrated their electoral victory, and the losers challenged their loss, the UN praised the electoral process, and the Federal Supreme Court’s ratification of the results seemed like a pressure release valve. In light of Iraq’s Higher Electoral Commission’s (IHEC) cumbersome management of the election process and the many mistakes made, an order to recount all the results by hand would have been a reasonable measure to appease all the doubts about the results. In fact, the Federal Supreme Court also asked the next parliament to change the elections law of 2020 and return to the manual count of election results. The court justified its decision by saying that many countries, including ones with more advanced technological sectors and capabilities, abolished electronic counting systems given that these are hackable and could jeopardize the credibility of elections. Despite this assessment and the five seat changes that took place between initial results announced by IHEC and the ones ratified by the Federal Supreme Court, the latter entity chose not to run the risk of  backslash by ordering a full manual recount and, instead, requested that everyone abide by the ratified results. 

Nevertheless, IHEC’s biggest problem lies with its systematic mismanagement of the election process as a whole. Looking back for instance at the 2018 elections, it becomes clear that inherent weak points in IHEC’s different systems pose the actual threat to the credibility of Iraq’s elections, not only how the results are counted. 

The outcome of the elections once again produced a fragmented polity, which makes the already complicated government formation process  more convoluted. As political analyst Hamzeh Hadad points out in his recent report that examines government formation in Iraq since 2005, “[t]he results of the elections determine the bargaining power of political parties and will ultimately impact how the government pie will be divided”. The opening parliamentary session seemingly produced two opposing camps, and a third watching from the sidelines. One camp is spearheaded by Muqtada Al-Sadr, the coalition between Azm and Taqadum – the largest Sunni blocs, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). The other camp is represented by the Coordination Framework, a coalition between Maliki’s State of Law, Ameri’s Fateh, and some other smaller groups. Additionally, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and a small number of Sunni members of parliament can also be counted as part of the second camp. The third camp is a collection of a sizeable number of independent members of parliament, and the Emtidad Movement, one of the political offspring of the Tishreen Protest Movement that took part in the 2021 elections. 

Nevertheless, there is no real coherence within each of the camps. Whether the Sadrist Movement or the Coordination Framework independently nominate a prime minister candidate or whether they come together to do so, the negotiations over the other posts, including the bureaucratic ones, will take a long time. As Hadad points out in his report, this fragmentation resulted in the “the re-sectarianization of the electoral system and the entrenchment of muhasasa (informal ethno-sectarian quota) at a time when the public has strongly rejected it”. Hence, there are no indicators that this is going to be a smooth or short process.

The fragmentation will have an impact on the 2022 federal budget that was not passed last year, and will most likely be placed on the back burner till a new government is passed. Furthermore, it is not surprising that economic reform is not being taken seriously. Based on Finance Minister Ali Allawi’s assessment, we are nowhere near having a budget for 2022. If the parliament fails again at passing a budget, the country will be in the same boat as 2020 and 2014 where the government is unable to spend on or implement any projects. If so, the government’s role will be limited to providing limited services and paying public employee salaries. 

While Iraq’s political and economic future looks foggy, so too does its security. The presence of U.S. forces in Iraq, and its true nature, is going to be a hot issue for the new government to handle. While the U.S. continuously claimed in the past that the mission of its presence was for training and support, it announced a few weeks ago that it finished its combat mission, leaving many to wonder what will really change if no troops are to leave? Also, why does the U.S. need 2500 troops for a training mission when it had about the same number of troops in Afghanistan, an active combat zone, shortly before it withdrew from there last year? These contradicting and confusing statements and numbers continue to signal mistrust and ambiguity about the real purpose of U.S. troops on the ground and pose a source of instability, promoting Iraqi resistance factions to attack their bases and convoys. This of course will undermine the objective of fighting Da’ish remnants and maintaining safety for Iraqis.