2014 Iraqi parliamentary election

30 April 2014 (2014-04-30)
All 328 seats to the Council of Representatives 165 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	62%[1]
Leader Nouri al-Maliki Muqtada al-Sadr Ammar al-Hakim Alliance State of Law al-Ahrar Al-Muwatin Last election 89 39 18 Seats won 92 34 29 Seat change 3 5 11 Popular vote 3,141,835 917,589 982,003 Percentage 24.14% 7.05% 7.55%   Leader Usama al-Nujayfi Ayad Allawi Masoud Barzani Alliance Muttahidoon Al-Wataniya KDP Last election 9 28 29 Seats won 23 21 25 Seat change 14 7 4 Popular vote 680,690 686,017 1,038,002 Percentage 5.23% 5.27% 7.98%   Leader Barham Salih Saleh al-Mutlaq Nawshirwan Mustafa Alliance PUK al-Arabiya Gorran Last election 14 16 8 Seats won 21 10 9 Seat change 7 6 1 Popular vote 851,326 315,858 451,858 Percentage 6.07% 2.43% 3.47%
Colours denote which party won the most votes in every governorate
Prime Minister before election Nouri al-Maliki State of Law Prime Minister-designate Haidar al-Abadi State of Law

Parliamentary elections were held in Iraq on 30 April 2014. The elections decided the 328 members of the Council of Representatives who will in turn elect the Iraqi president and prime minister.

Electoral system

The open list form of party-list proportional representation, using the governorates as the constituencies, is the electoral system used. The counting system has been changed slightly from the largest remainder method to the modified Sainte-Laguë method due to a ruling by the Supreme Court of Iraq that the previous method discriminated against smaller parties. Seven "compensatory" seats that were awarded at the national level to those parties whose national share of the vote wasn't reflected in the seats won at the governorate level have been allocated to individual governorates. Eight seats remain reserved for minority groups at the national level: five for Assyrians and one each for Mandaeans, Yezidis, and Shabaks.^[2][3]

Campaign

The campaign was expected to focus on competition within the three main religious and ethnic communities: Shi'ite Arabs, Sunni Arabs and Kurds. While under the Constitution of Iraq the head of the largest coalition has the first call to become prime minister, in a precedent set following the 2010 election, a revised coalition can be formed following the election. This reduced the incentive for parties to form broad coalitions prior to the election. So in November 2011, Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission approved 276 political entities to run in the elections, including a number of coalitions.^[4]

Shi'ite Arabs were split between the Prime Minister's State of Law Coalition, the Sadrist al-Ahrar Bloc, and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq backed al-Muwatin coalition. The former secular, non-sectarian Iraqiya bloc – 2010 the strongest force elected into parliament – had broken apart into Usama al-Nujayfi's Sunni regionalist Muttahidoon coalition, Ayad Allawi's National Coalition al-Wataniya, and Saleh al-Mutlaq's al-Arabiya Coalition.^[5] And the two prominent Kurdish parties, Masoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), were joined by a third Kurdish party, the Movement for Change (Gorran) headed by Nawshirwan Mustafa.

Conduct

As members of the security forces voted on Monday 28 April, six different polling stations were hit by suicide bombers, leading to at least 27 deaths. Insurgent group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has threatened violence against Sunni Muslims who vote in the election.^[6]

Results

The IHEC confirmed the results on 25 May.

Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/–
	State of Law Coalition	3,141,835	24.14	92	3
	Al-Muwatin	982,003	7.55	29	+11
	Al-Ahrar Bloc	917,589	7.05	28	New
	Kurdistan Democratic Party	852,198	6.55	19	–10
	Patriotic Union of Kurdistan	789,519	6.07	19	+5
	Al-Wataniya	686,017	5.27	21	–7
	Muttahidoon	680,690	5.23	23	New
	Gorran Movement	451,858	3.47	9	+1
	Al-Arabiya Coalition	315,858	2.43	10	–6
	Islamic Virtue Party	211,257	1.62	6	New
	National Reform Trend	192,763	1.48	6	New
	Nineveh Kurdistan Alliance	185,804	1.43	6	–
	Kurdistan Islamic Union	165,856	1.27	4	–1
	Diyala Is Our Identity	159,605	1.23	5	New
	Iraq Alliance	153,672	1.18	5	New
	Kurdistan Islamic Group	137,504	1.06	3	–
	Elites Movement	116,268	0.89	3	New
	Civil Democratic Alliance	112,563	0.86	3	+3
	National Partnership Gathering	110,933	0.85	3	New
	National Nineveh Alliance	79,071	0.61	3	New
	Iraqi Turkmen Front	71,492	0.55	2	–
	Iraqi Loyalty Coalition	67,796	0.52	2	New
	Kafa'at & Jamahir Coalition	67,084	0.52	2	New
	Kurdistani Peace List	61,807	0.47	2	–
	Anbar Loyalty Coalition	58,994	0.45	3	New
	Unity of the Sons of Iraq	46,627	0.36	2	New
	National Alliance of Saladin	46,039	0.35	1	New
	Independent Civil Alternative Coalition	41,090	0.32	1	New
	Arab Alliance of Kirkuk	38,328	0.29	1	–
	Karama Alliance	36,288	0.28	1	New
	Al-Sadiqoun Bloc	36,026	0.28	1	–
	Equitable State Movement	31,973	0.25	1	New
	Islamic Dawa Party	27,515	0.21	1	–
	National Coalition in Saladin	26,910	0.21	1	New
	Solidarity in Iraq Coalition	26,013	0.20	1	New
	Rafidain List	24,353	0.19	2	–1
	Chaldean Syriac Assyrian Popular Council	23,781	0.18	2	0
	Khalas Coalition	18,229	0.14	1	New
	Yazidi Movement for Reform and Progress	14,910	0.11	1	0
	Iraqi Communist Party	12,626	0.10	1	+1
	Mandean List	7,194	0.06	1	–
	Council of Free Shabaks	3,375	0.03	1	–
	Other parties	1,782,452	13.70	0	–
Total		13,013,765	100.00	328	+3
Registered voters/turnout		21,503,875	–
Source: ORSAM

Candidate votes

#		Candidate	Party	Election List	Governorate	Votes	+/–
	1.	Nouri al-Maliki	Islamic Da'awa Party	State of Law Coalition	Baghdad	721,782[7]
	2.	Ayad Allawi	Iraqi National Accord	al-Wataniya Coalition	Baghdad	229,709[7]
	3.	aaram Muhammad Ali	Movement for Change	Movement for Change (Gorran) List	Sulaymaniyah	150,613
	4.	Najmiddin Karim	Patriotic Union of Kurdistan	PUK List	Kirkuk	150,084
	5.	Khalaf Abdul al Samad	Islamic Da'awa Party	State of Law Coalition	Basra	126,848
	6.	Usama al-Nujayfi	al-Hadba	Muttahidoon	Nineveh	112,551
	7.	Hanan Saeed Mohsen al-Fatlawi		State of Law Coalition	Babil	90,781[8]
	8.	shirko Mirza Mohammad Amin	Patriotic Union of Kurdistan	PUK List	Sulaymaniyah	83,663[9]
	9.	Mohammed Ghali Darraji		al-Ahrar Coalition	Baghdad	78,561[10]
	10.	Ariz Abdullah Ahmed Mahmoud	Patriotic Union of Kurdistan	PUK List	Arbil	76,380[11]

Government formation

The first session of the new parliament began on 1 July where all 328 members took oath to carry out their legal tasks and responsibilities devotedly and honestly and preserve the independence and sovereignty of Iraq, and safeguard the interests of its people. The constitution mentions that in the first session, the parliament has to elect a Speaker for the House along with two deputies. This didn't happen as some Kurdish and Sunni Arab MPs boycotted the session causing a lack of quorum since they did not agree on a single candidate. The next session took place on 13 July and brought about a consensus for the post of Speaker after it was announced that Salim al-Jabouri was the candidate. After Salim al-Jabouri was voted as Speaker of the House, the parliament voted for Fuad Masum as president who in turn asked Haider al-Abadi to form a government on 11 August. The government was formed on 8 September 2014 with most parties being part of the new government.

References