On November 11, 2025, Iraqis voted in their seventh parliamentary election since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003. According to the Iraqi High Electoral Commission, the election saw a turnout of 56 percent, markedly higher than the previous two elections. Although the results have yet to be confirmed by the judiciary, no party has emerged with a decisive victory. The most likely outcome will involve the formation of a broad coalition government in which a select group of Shia parties will determine who serves as prime minister. The identity of that prime minister is not yet clear, but incumbent Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani is intent on a second term.
Iraq’s post-2003 political system is imperfect, and its creation has come at a huge cost to Iraqis, who have lived through decades of dictatorship and violence. But the country has recently achieved a semblance of relative stability. In the last few months, Iraq has narrowly avoided being dragged into the war between Israel and Iran. For the government to carry out much-needed internal reforms, Iraqis are counting on continued stability amidst regional upheaval. Of equal importance for Iraqi citizens, who come from diverse ethnic and sectarian backgrounds and suffered decades of one-party rule under the Baath, is avoiding the consolidation of power by one individual or one party. These are the stakes of this election and the upcoming government formation.
Consociationalism and the Broader Shia Coalition
Government formation in Iraq follows a typical trajectory. The 2005 constitution forces the formation of broad consensus governments, but it does not detail what that power-sharing should look like. In practice, over the past two decades, Iraq has developed an informal consociational system based on ethno-sectarian identity. This system is similar to Lebanon’s model, in which the president is always a Maronite, the prime minister a Sunni, and the speaker of parliament a Shia. In Iraq, the presidency goes to the Kurds, the premiership to the Shia, and speakership of parliament to the Sunnis. In ministries and other government agencies, leadership roles are unofficially allocated according to this formula. Iraqi Kurds govern the semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan with its own parliament and government, in addition to having a consociational share of power in the federal government.
No single party has ever won a majority of the seats in post-2003 Iraqi election. The closest that any party ever reached was in 2014, when the coalition led by Nouri al-Maliki won 92 seats. Initial results from the 2025 vote indicate that Sudani’s coalition won 45 seats—far from the 165 needed to hold a majority in Iraq’s 329-seat parliament.
Shia political parties, representing Iraq’s demographic majority, tend to win the most seats in parliament.
Even if a party were to win 51 percent of seats, Iraq’s parliamentary democracy has built-in guardrails against monopolization by a single party. Electing a president requires a two-thirds majority in parliament. The president is then tasked with appointing a prime minister-designate from the largest bloc in parliament. This crucial detail was placed in the 2005 Iraqi constitution to protect the post-Ba’athist state from the tyranny of the majority and to force a broad power-sharing system.
Shia political parties, which represent Iraq’s demographic majority, tend to win the most seats in parliament. The Shia party with the most seats has historically put its weight toward a candidate for prime minister, as the Shia parties come together to form a coalition after elections are held. The name of the coalition has changed over time, from the United Iraqi Alliance to the Iraqi National Alliance to today’s Coordination Framework. This coalition then builds a larger bloc with the major Sunni and Kurdish parties to form a government.
The Coordination Framework, a large umbrella of all the major Shia political parties in Iraq (except the Sadrist Movement), managed to form a government after the 2021 election, and their preferred candidate, Sudani, became prime minister. With the process of government formation taking slightly over a year, Sudani had only three years in the premiership. Despite the usual challenges facing an Iraqi prime minister—balancing competing pressures from Washington and Tehran, and governing a coalition of potential rivals—Sudani’s term will be remembered largely for his success in preventing Iraq from being dragged into regional wars. As Israel’s post-October 7 war in Gaza expanded to attacks on Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran, the posturing of Iranian-aligned paramilitaries in the country made Iraqis worry that Israel would target them next.
Now the question is: will Sudani be able to convince his political allies to give him a second term? He believes that a second term will allow him to continue his construction and development projects, although he is doubtlessly also personally enticed by all the trappings of power in Iraq. If Sudani succeeds, his tendency to violate civil liberties, along with the rarity of a premier winning a second term, may raise concerns that he may use the opportunity to entrench his power—as Malki did before him—thereby hindering Iraq’s fragile democratization. If Sudani fails, the next prime minister will likely be a compromise candidate, acceptable to all the political parties, who also will need to maintain Iraq’s security.
Government Formation and the Dangers of a Second Term
Sudani believes that his public popularity will persuade the Coordination Framework to back him for a second term. He has spearheaded large-scale construction projects in Baghdad, eased congestion there, and rehabilitated roads and highways linking the provinces. He has avoided unpopular economic reforms like cutting public-sector hiring or devaluing the Iraqi dinar against the US dollar. Sudani is banking on the visibility of his infrastructure projects and the Iraqi public’s hunger for basic services. But securing electoral votes is only part of the formula for political success.
Sudani has therefore formed a broad electoral bloc, aptly named the Reconstruction and Development Coalition, bringing together parties and politicians from across the political spectrum. Among his allies is Faleh al-Fayyad, the commander of the Popular Mobilization Commission that oversees Iraq’s Shia-dominated armed factions, who is close to Iran and who can rally a segment of the Coordination Framework to this cause. But Sudani’s electoral coalition also extends to professed liberals such as those of the Amarji party and to political independents who emerged from the 2019-2020 Tishreen protest movement, such as member of parliament Noor Nafea al-Julihawi from Diwaniya province, whose representation in parliament has declined from 40 in 2021 to a likely two or three seats after the 2025 vote. Other protest-based candidates who did not support Sudani and instead joined the rival Badeel Coalition (which includes the Iraqi Communist Party) fared less well in the recent elections.
Maliki’s tale reminds us of the dangers that a second term in office can present.
The only prime minister who successfully achieved two terms in office since 2003 was Nouri al-Maliki, who was selected to form a government following the December 2005 elections, and then formed a second government after the April 2010 elections. Maliki, too, was first chosen as a compromise candidate, but the second time he broke from the larger Shia coalition and ran alone, winning 89 seats. Although he won two fewer seats than his closest competitor Iyad Allawi, Maliki was nevertheless able to form a larger coalition with the other Shia parties and secure his reappointment. Maliki’s tale, however, is a cautionary one, reminding us of the dangers that a second term in office can present—including complacency, corruption, and entrenchment.
While there is no constitutional term limit on prime ministers, only on presidents, the fact that the prime minister is also commander-in-chief and holds the most power in the executive branch means that a second-term appointment creates a risk of consolidating power. The risk is especially acute in a nascent democracy such as Iraq. Despite the neighborhood effects of an unstable and undemocratic region, Iraq has managed to hold several competitive elections, with multiple transfers of power—and has arguably been more successful than Tunisia, previously heralded as the best example of post-Arab Spring democratization but which has reverted to authoritarianism under President Kais Saied. Single-term premierships are an important safeguard against democratic backsliding in Iraq.
Will Sudani Secure a Second Term?
Sudani is the first post-2003 prime minister who was not in exile during the Baath regime. The fact that he has spent his entire life in Iraq was seen as marking a generational shift in Iraq’s democratic transition, which until that point had only seen former exiles assume positions of authority. Like millions of ordinary Iraqis, Sudani had suffered under international sanctions and the brutality of the Baath party; he did not have a second passport with which to flee the country. As a result, Sudani was accustomed to the welfare-oriented policies that have dominated Iraq’s social contract for many years. The expansion of these oil-funded policies, especially public-sector hiring, has become financially untenable as Iraq’s population grows. In his first 100 days in office Sudani showed no sign of pursuing the reforms laid out in an economic white paper written by his predecessor’s government, which provided a roadmap for easing Iraq’s oil dependency, transforming its economy, and protecting it against oil price collapse. Instead, Sudani continued the practice of mass public sector hiring, relying on high oil prices throughout his premiership.
While his economic policies led Sudani’s bloc to win more seats than any other party or coalition in the 2025 election, his margin of victory was small compared to prior winners. He will now have to shift his focus from convincing Iraqi voters to vote for him to convincing the political elite to give him the opportunity to form a new government. Sudani may have governed during Iraq’s most stable period in decades, but he did not go without making enemies. Sudani was accused of illegal practices such as wiretapping his political opponents and cultivating a nepotistic network by appointing his brothers and cousins to positions in the prime minister’s office. The news caused an uproar, but the accusations were put on the back burner as the region experienced turmoil from the wars with Israel. This controversy could resurface during government formation if Sudani’s peers feel that his bid for the premiership is too bold or that he is not allocating them enough positions in the new government.
Foreign influence during government formation in Iraq has decreased in recent years, with less direct involvement from both the United States and Iran. The decline of US interference stems from American fatigue over Iraq; Iran has been weakened by Israel’s direct attacks on its territory, the military defeat of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. A weakened Iran can work in favor of Sudani, as he has cultivated closer relations to the West and demonstrated that he can work with Western states despite political alliances with parties close to Iran. US President Donald Trump has appointed a special envoy to Iraq, Mark Savaya, who praised Sudani’s leadership in his first official statement. It remains to be seen, however, whether the United States will seek to influence the formation of the new government and whether a newcomer to the world of Iraqi politics like Savaya will be effective.
Conclusion
Iraq’s democratization has proven resilient, producing numerous leaders that steered the country through a series of domestic and regional crises. From handling broad coalition governments in Baghdad to navigating relations between bitter rivals in Tehran and Washington, the role of the Iraqi prime minister is not easy and requires a quick learning curve. Sudani has completed his term but arguably did not achieve enough to differentiate himself from other Iraqi politicians. Despite his strong 2025 election performance, his track record was not sufficiently stellar to entice Iraqi voters to give his party a majority. Whether Sudani now returns as prime minister or a new face takes charge, the next premier will still depend on the Coordination Framework and the larger coalition that includes Sunni and Kurdish parties. This dependency raises doubts as to whether Iraq’s new government will be very different from its predecessor.
The views expressed in this publication are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab Center Washington DC, its staff, or its Board of Directors.
