Elections in Iraq

Elections in Iraq gives information on election and election results in Iraq.

Under the Iraqi constitution of 1925, Iraq was a constitutional monarchy, with a bicameral legislature consisting of an elected House of Representatives and an appointed Senate. The lower house was elected every four years by manhood suffrage (women did not vote). The first Parliament met in 1925. Ten general elections were held before the overthrow of the monarchy in 1958. The electoral system, however, was manipulated by the King and his advisors, who were Sunni Muslims, to ensure that the Shi'a majority were prevented from taking power.

Between 1958 and 2003 Iraq was ruled by a series of military governments, all dominated by Iraqi Arabs, particularly after the emergence of the Ba'ath Party in the early 1960s. Under the regime of Saddam Hussein, who came to power in 1979, Kurds and Shi'a majority were persecuted. Saddam's rule was largely run by Sunni Arabs from Tikrit (a mainly Sunni area), his home region. On October 16, 2002, after a well-publicized show election, Iraqi officials declared that Saddam had been re-elected to another seven-year term as President by a 100% unanimous vote of all 11,445,638 eligible Iraqis, eclipsing the 99.96% received in 1995. Outside governments dismissed the vote as lacking credibility.

The multinational force's 2003 invasion of Iraq overthrew Saddam's government and installed an interim administration.

An initial Iraqi attempt at holding local elections was canceled by Paul Bremer.

This government held elections on January 30, 2005 to begin the process of writing a constitution. International groups and the formerly excluded factions claimed that the January 2005 elections were the first free elections in Iraq's history, with a fair representation of all groups. This is in stark contrast to previous elections. After the 16 October 2002 referendum on the extension of his role as President, Saddam Hussein claimed that %100 of the voters voted "yes" and that %100 of Iraqi's had voted (approximately 24,001,820 people). Opponents of the occupation, such as the various insurgent groups, claimed the elections were not free and fair, citing flaws in the process. The UN adviser to Iraq's election commission Craig Jenness said the complaints were not significant; "I don't see anything that would necessitate a rerun.... There were nearly 7,000 candidates standing in this election and only 275 seats, so you're always going to have winners and losers and it's normal that the losers won't always be happy about it."

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