Iraqi parliamentary election, 2014

Iraqi parliamentary election, 2014

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 Dia al-Asadi Ammar al-Hakim Alliance State of Law Coalition 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 - 1,038,002 Percentage 5.23% -   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 851,326 451,858

Colours denote which party won the most votes in every governorate

Prime Minister before election Nouri al-Maliki State of Law Coalition Prime Minister-designate Haidar al-Abadi State of Law Coalition

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]

Seat allocation

Prior to the elections, the parliament decided to expand from 325 to 328. As with the 2010 elections, 8 seats were reserved for ethnic and religious minorities. Unlike previous elections, there were no compensatory seats; reserved seats that previously favorited big-time parties.

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

National results

The IHEC confirmed the results on 25 May. The official number of seats is as follows:

Party	Votes	%	Seats	Previous	+/–
State of Law Coalition	3,141,835	24.14	92	89	3
Sadrist Movements (Muqtada al-Sadr) Including: -Al-Ahrar Bloc (28) -Elite Movement (Nukhab) (3) -National Partnership Gathering (Sharaka) (3)			34		34
Al-Muwatin Coalition (Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq)			29		29
Muttahidoon	680,690	5.23	23
Al-Wataniya			21
Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP)	1,038,002	9.25	25
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)	851,326	7.59	21
Al-Arabiya Coalition			10
Movement for Change (Gorran)	451,858	4.023	9
Islamic Virtue Party (Al-Fadhila and Independent Elite Alliance)			6
National Reform Trend (Tayyar al Islah) / Al Jaafari			6
Diyala is Our Identity	159,605	1.42	5
Iraq Alliance (Etelaf Al-Iraq)			8[7]
Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU)			4
Kurdistan Islamic Group (KIG)			3
Nineveh National Alliance (allied with Ammar al-Hakim)			3
Civil Democratic Alliance			3
Loyalty to Al-Anbar			3
Iraqi Turkmen Front			2
Iraqi Loyalty Alliance (Al Wafaa al Iraqi)			2
Competences and People Gathering (Kafaat wa Jamahir)			2
Unity of the Iraqis (Wahdat Abnaa al-Iraq)			2
Other coalitions / groups (one seat each) -National Alliance of Saladin -National Coalition in Saladin -Independent Civil Alternative Coalition -Dignity Alliance (Karama) -Al-Sadiqoun Bloc -The Equitable State Movement -Ad Dawa Iraq Organization -Solidarity in Iraq (Al Tadamon) Alliance -Salvation (Khalas) Alliance -Arab Kirkuk Alliance			10
Reserved Christian seats -National Rafidain List (Assyrian Democratic Movement) (2) -Assyrian Chaldean Popular Council (2) -Democratic Uruk List (Iraqi Communist Party) (1)			5
Reserved Mandaean seat - Hareth Shanshal Sunaid al-Harithi (1)	7,194		1
Reserved Yezidi seat - Yazidi Movement for Reform and Progress (1)	14,910		1
Reserved Shabak seat - Council of Free Shabaks (1)			1
Total	11,222,403		328	325	3
Source: ISW

Results by governorate

Al Anbar Governorate

Arbil Governorate

Babil Governorate

Baghdad Governorate

Basra Governorate

Dhi Qar Governorate

Diyala Governorate

Dohuk Governorate

Karbala Governorate

Kirkuk Governorate

Maysan Governorate

Muthanna Governorate

Najaf Governorate

Nineveh Governorate

Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate

Saladin Governorate

Sulaymaniyah Governorate

Wasit Governorate

Candidate votes

#		Candidate	Party	Election List	Governorate	Votes	+/–
	1.	Nouri al-Maliki	Islamic Da'awa Party	State of Law Coalition	Baghdad	721,782[8]
	2.	Ayad Allawi	Iraqi National Accord	al-Wataniya Coalition	Baghdad	229,709[8]
	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	Ninawa	112,551
	7.	Hanan Saeed Mohsin Fatlawi		State of Law Coalition	Babil	90,781[9]
	8.	shirko Mirza Mohammad Amin	Patriotic Union of Kurdistan	PUK List	Sulaymaniyah	83,663[10]
	9.	Mohammed Ghali Darraji		al-Ahrar Coalition	Baghdad	78,561[11]
	10.	Ariz Abdullah Ahmed Mahmoud	Patriotic Union of Kurdistan	PUK List	Arbil	76,380[12]

Government formation

The first sitting of the new parliament on 1 July ended after Kurdish and Sunni Arab MPs boycotted the session and caused its adjournment because of a lack of a quorum. The next sitting on 13 July to choose a president (Kurd), prime minister (Shia) and speaker (Sunni Arab) brought about a consensus for the post of speaker after MP Mohammed al-Karbooli announced that Salim al-Jabouri was the candidate.^[13] The government formation was also affected by most international, and some domestic, calls to replace the al-Maliki amidst the 2014 Northern Iraq offensive, while Kurdish control of some northern areas during the fighting and a promise for an Iraqi Kurdish independence referendum, 2014 led to rifts with the central government.

References

Elections and referendums in Iraq
Parliamentary elections	1924 1925 1928 1930 1933 1934 1935 1937 (Feb) 1937 (Dec) 1939 1943 1947 1948 1953 1954 (Jun) 1954 (Sep) 1958 1980 1984 1989 1996 2000 2005 (Jan) 2005 (Dec) 2010 2014
Presidential elections	1995 2002
Governorate elections	2005 2009 2013 2014
Referendums	1921 2005
See also: Elections and referendums in Iraqi Kurdistan