The Iraqi government set October 10, 2021 as the time for parliamentary elections at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in late December, attended by members of the High Electoral Commission. In the last two years, this country has been held ahead of schedule.
Various Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni political groups, as the most important and major actors in the political scene of this country in proportion to their share, have started their consultations from the first days of October 10th and even before this date to win more seats in parliament.
The Iraqi government, under pressure from widespread popular protests that began in October 2019 and led to the resignation of former Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, announced October 10, 2021 as the time for early elections.
As the Iraqi election approaches, the map of political coalitions and groups that have already begun their coalition or are in the process of announcing a coalition after the election is gradually being revealed.
During this period, various and contradictory news have been published about the coalition of political currents and the weightlifting of party groups. Massoud Barzani “was in the elections before the parliamentary deadline. With the announcement of this coalition, other groups did not sit idle and other new coalitions were born.
Despite all these movements, it does not seem that early parliamentary elections will be a surprise, and unknown groups or emerging currents will be able to change the Iraqi political scene and turn the page, and it is very likely that parliamentary seats will again be divided between existing political groups and currents.
Iraqi political analysts also believe that the results of the October 10 elections will not be much different from the results of the 2018 elections, and it is far from surprising.
Harith Hassan, an Iraqi affairs expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Al-Hurra that the upcoming elections were neither a complete repetition of previous elections nor a fundamental change in the Iraqi political scene. In his opinion, this election will not be exactly what the demonstrator’s want and will not bring new political figures to power.
He also believes that the forces resulting from the street demonstrations and protests in the elections are unlikely to surprise and change the political scene in Iraq.
Hassan, however, says that the current political movement on the eve of the early elections shows that the same political formation is not going to be repeated in the country.
On the one hand, it is said that Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the Sadr faction in Iraq, has reached final agreements with Massoud Barzani, the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and several Sunni political organizations to form a coalition after the election results are known. .
On the other hand, the Fatah coalition and some Shiite political forces are said to be approaching the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and a number of Sunni political forces.
According to Harith Hassan, these data show that at the very least, the experience of the “reform” and “construction” coalitions will be repeated, but this time it will be stronger and more realistic and will probably become real minority and majority coalitions.
So far, only one official coalition has announced its existence in Iraq, and that coalition is the “Iraqi National Wisdom Movement” led by “Sayyid Ammar al-Hakim” and the “Nasr” coalition led by Haidar al-Abadi and the formation of the “Alliance of National Government Forces”. But the informal alliances so far are the Sadr-Barzani coalition and the Fatah coalition with the Patriotic Union, which is being consulted and negotiated with “Mohammad al-Halbousi” (the current speaker of parliament) to join.
Iyad Anbar, a professor of political science at Kufa University, believes that these coalitions are more in line with the post-election stage, and that Iraqi political forces would prefer to join the coalition once the election results and the weight of each side in the political arena are known.
Anbar does not take the influence of the political forces resulting from the protests in the elections very seriously and believes that the influence of these forces is greatly exaggerated.
On the other hand, Harith Hassan says that these forces still doubt that the elections will be free and transparent, and that is why most of them have already boycotted the elections.
According to him, this action of theirs will make the election results open for debate.
What is clear is that the early parliamentary elections on October 10 will not come as a surprise, and Iraq will continue to be the scene of current political groups and party currents, and only the composition and image of the coalitions will change to win more seats.