Iraq Amends Its Electoral Law

The Kurds had hoped that ministry of planning estimates would be used instead, thereby increasing the number of MPs to 351. When this didn’t happen, the Kurds achieved a respectable second best alternative through a disproportional increase in the newly added governorate seats. Generally speaking, since the Kurds have reasonable internal coherence and discipline among its parliamentarians, seat increases work in their favour. Conversely, the Shiite Islamists have strenuously fought against seat increases, probably fearing even greater fragmentation as a result.

For their part, the secular (and now increasingly Sunni-backed) Iraqiyya has already fragmented to such a degree that its leaders may have supported the Kurdish position simply in the hope that any increase in seat number would offer them a greater chance to keep their own personal seats! It is noteworthy that in the end, clear signals from the Shiite clergy expressing disapproval of a seat increase were not adhered to entirely. Some sources suggest the United Nations Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) played a role in facilitating a compromise on this issue between the Kurds and the Shiite Islamists.

One caveat concerning the new law needs to be mentioned: Its status as a “law proposal” rather than a “legislative project”. The Iraqi federal supreme court has consistently struck down such proposals as unconstitutional when challenged (and especially when these laws are unfavourable to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki). It might do so again, simply for consistency. An even trickier issue concerns the Yazidi minority quota, which the court itself ordered be adjusted upwards in 2010 – that didn’t happen today (and the Yazidis protested).

There are however two ameliorating factors here: Firstly, with regard to the overall status of this act of legislation, the new law was passed as an amendment to an existing law, rather than as a brand new law. Second, the new law successfully addresses specific and overriding issues that the supreme court itself had raised regarding seat distribution method. Hopefully, there is now so much momentum towards elections in April 2014 that no side will try to fish in the legal murky waters that admittedly exist. It would, after all, be a parody if the supreme court used a technicality to strike down legislative amendments that the court itself had previously dictated.