The Shi’a forces today are no longer what they used to be when Saddam Hussein’s regime collapsed in 2003. After being once united under a single umbrella, the race for influence has divided them.

When Saddam Hussein’s regime fell on 9 April 2003, the leaders of Shi’a opposition movements moved to the forefront of the political scene, raising the slogan of the Shi’a community’s right to assume power, on the basis that it is the largest demographic group in Iraq. 

From this vision, a parliamentary political system was established, designed by its architects to guarantee the participation of all communities in governing the new state, but with the heaviest weight assigned to the Shi’a, as the largest voting bloc. 

In contrast, most Sunni forces boycotted the first elections, leaving the field almost exclusively to the Shi’a groups that united in the “United Iraqi Alliance”. This coalition included 17 major Shi’a parties and movements, among them the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution led by Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim, both wings of the Da‘wa Party, the Sadrist Movement, the Badr Organisation, the Virtue Party, and other factions and movements. The coalition’s leaders declared that their list enjoyed the support of the Shi’a religious authority Ali Al-Sistani. 

At the time, Al-Sistani’s office issued a statement affirming that he stood at an equal distance from all lists and candidates, and did not directly support any of them. Nevertheless, members of the coalition insisted that they enjoyed his moral support. Narratives spread among Shi’a that the his public position was limited to the media, while the real stance favoured the list that united the Shi’a forces. 

The coalition secured the majority of Shi’a votes in the National Assembly elections on 30 January 2005, winning 140 out of 275 seats. Though it did not reach the two-thirds majority required to form a government, it built alliances with other blocs that enabled it to form the first elected government after the fall of Baghdad, headed by Ibrahim Al-Ja‘fari, leader of the Da‘wa Party (Central Command). 

When the permanent constitution was drafted in the same year, Shi’a forces showed a clear determination to cement their grip on the levers of power and guarantee their continued leadership of the state. The constitution was approved in a popular referendum on 15 October 2005, becoming the legal framework that would regulate political relations in the next phase. 

But cracks soon emerged within the Shi’a house with the end of Al-Ja‘fari’s government and the parliamentary elections on 15 December 2005. Al-Ja‘fari clung to his position, but the United Alliance came under heavy internal and external pressure that forced a change. After tough negotiations, Nouri Al-Maliki was chosen as prime minister, and Al-Ja‘fari had to submit to reality. 

In March 2008, Al-Maliki launched one of the most decisive confrontations with the Sadrist Movement in Operation Charge of the Knights, aimed at dismantling the Mahdi Army’s control of Basra and other Iraqi cities. That operation became one of the clearest markers of Shi’a division. 

The operation lasted weeks, marked by fierce fighting, and ended with the government asserting authority and Muqtada Al-Sadr’s influence diminished. This boosted Al-Maliki’s status as a strong leader within the Shi’a camp and reinforced his drive to centralise security decision-making. 

By the 2010 elections, Al-Maliki had shifted from being a consensus prime minister to a central player in Iraq’s political equation — even to a political leader seeking to consolidate his personal authority within the new system. 

Power calculations 

In the years prior, Al-Maliki worked to consolidate his influence by gaining control of the security and military apparatus and the executive institutions of the state. This allowed him to impose himself as an unavoidable player. As the elections approached, he established the “State of Law Coalition”, a bloc he intended as a vehicle to consolidate his leadership and cement a more centralised approach to governance. This marked a clear split from the “United Iraqi Alliance”, once the umbrella for all Shi’a forces. 

In response, the rest of the Shi’a forces found themselves compelled to regroup in order to preserve their political weight. They reconstituted themselves as the “Iraqi National Alliance” to contest the 2010 elections. 

This new alignment signalled the beginning of a competitive struggle for leadership of the Shi’a house. “Unity through victimhood” was no longer the only glue; calculations of power, influence, and interests moved to the centre of the equation. 

Those years saw unprecedented tensions over political decision-making in Baghdad. Al-Maliki concentrated authority in his own hands, personally managing security portfolios and placing key agencies under his direct control. His Shi’a rivals accused him of seeking to establish one-man rule. 

Caption: In the 2010 elections, Al-Maliki broke away from the Shi’a umbrella, running under the “State of Law Coalition”. 

This approach also strained relations with the Sunni community, which felt increasingly marginalised, and fuelled tensions with Kurdish parties over contested issues, particularly oil and disputed territories. 

Despite this fraught climate, Al-Maliki succeeded, through a web of political alliances and protracted bargaining, in securing a second term. He confirmed his status as the strongest leader at that historical moment, capable of defying rivals within and outside the Shi’a camp. 

His second term tested the political system’s ability to adapt to a dominant personality inclined to monopolise decision-making. This centralisation contributed to a widespread sense that power in Baghdad had concentrated in the hands of a single man, raising alarm among diverse political forces. 

The 2014 elections exposed the depth of fracture within the Shi’a house. The coalition collapsed entirely, with major Shi’a leaders contesting separately: Al-Maliki with State of Law, Muqtada al-Sadr with the Ahrar bloc, Ammar al-Hakim with the Muwatin bloc, Ibrahim al-Ja‘fari with the Reform Bloc, Qais al-Khazali with the Sadiqoun bloc, alongside the Virtue Party and other smaller forces. 

This fragmentation left no side able to secure an outright majority, forcing them back to the negotiating table to form the largest bloc capable of shaping a government. 

But rising internal pressures — from popular protests and mounting discontent with government performance, to regional and international opposition to a third term for Al-Maliki — ultimately forced his removal. Consensus settled on Haider Al-Abadi as his replacement, marking a shift, albeit relative, from one-man dominance to a more pluralistic Shi’a leadership. 

This amounted to an implicit recognition that Al-Maliki’s centralisation of power had reached its limits and was producing destabilising outcomes. 

A new map 

When Al-Abadi assumed the premiership after the 2014 elections, he faced an unstable reality: the Islamic State group (ISIS) had seized vast swathes of Iraq, including Mosul, the country’s second-largest city, posing an existential threat to the state. 

In this critical moment came Al-Sistani’s fatwa of “sufficient jihad”, which opened the way for unprecedented mass mobilisation. Volunteers streamed in to form the nucleus of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), which quickly transformed from disparate groups into an organised armed force that played a decisive role in halting ISIS’s advance. 

The rise of the PMF had a profound effect on the balance of power within the Shi’a house. The factions that fought on the frontlines were no longer mere military arms of political parties; they had gained strength that enabled them to confidently pursue political participation. 

In parallel with the military campaign, Al-Abadi’s government, backed directly by the international coalition, gradually regained Iraqi cities, culminating in the formal declaration of victory over ISIS. Yet this victory also planted the seeds of major political shifts, creating conditions for armed factions to transform into parliamentary political forces. 

In this context, the “Fatah Alliance” was formed under Hadi Al-Amiri, bringing together the main factions of the PMF — including the Badr Organisation, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, Kata’ib Hezbollah, and Harakat Sayyid al-Shuhada. This bloc entered the 2018 elections with confidence, leveraging its role in the war effort. 

For his part, Al-Abadi sought to capitalise on his military success by founding the “Victory Alliance”, which he hoped would embody his project of rebuilding the state after the war. 

The results of the 2018 elections revealed a major reshaping of the Shi’a political map. The “Sairoon” Alliance, led by Muqtada Al-Sadr, topped the polls with 54 out of 329 seats, bringing together the Sadrist Movement, the Communist Party, and independent technocrats — a political surprise. “Fatah” came second with 47 seats, followed by “Victory” with 42, “State of Law” under Al-Maliki with 26, and “Wisdom” led by Ammar al-Hakim with 19. 

Despite Al-Sadr’s lead, no bloc secured an outright majority. Prolonged and complex negotiations to form the largest bloc culminated in the selection of Adel Abdul Mahdi, who had not run in the elections, as prime minister. Considered acceptable to most sides, his appointment was a compromise to avoid open conflict among the competing Shi’a camps. 

But Abdul Mahdi’s government was born incomplete: parliament only granted confidence to 14 out of 22 ministers, leaving key portfolios like defence and interior vacant for months due to disputes over their distribution. 

The government failed to meet public expectations, recycling familiar faces and reproducing past failures, which deepened public frustration. At the same time, it became evident that the influence of armed factions had grown stronger within the state. Abdul Mahdi displayed a tendency to empower them, granting them influence over political and security decisions. This created imbalance within the state and fuelled deep unease across society, particularly among young people seeking a prosperous civil state ruled by law. 

This context — between the victory over ISIS and the entrenchment of armed factions — paved the way for the explosion of public anger in October 2019. Disillusionment erupted into a mass protest movement that would change the political game in the years to come. 

Dialogue in bullets 

The Tishreen protests of 2019 toppled Abdul Mahdi’s government and brought Mustafa Al-Kadhimi to lead a transitional phase towards early elections. 

Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic spread, protest momentum waned, and Al-Sadr turned against the movement he had initially supported. He deployed his followers, known as the “Blue Caps”, to attack demonstrators, dismantling sit-ins and clearing protest tents from Tahrir Square by 31 October 2020. 

Though the protests subsided, the political crisis endured until the early elections of 10 October 2021, which the Shi’a forces entered divided, opening the door to a new phase of contest over leadership of the largest community. 

The 2021 elections produced a sharp split: the Sadrist Movement won 73 seats, while the other Shi’a forces coalesced under the “Coordination Framework” to offset their losses. 

Al-Sadr insisted on forming a majority government with Sunnis and Kurds but failed to secure quorum or win over independents. He then took the dramatic step of withdrawing from the political process and pulling his MPs from parliament, overturning the whole political scene. 

This left the field open to the Coordination Framework. Yet al-Sadr did not remain silent: he mobilised his base to besiege parliament and block the Framework from forming a government. 

Tensions escalated until 29 August 2022, when armed clashes erupted at the gates of the Green Zone. The next day, Al-Sadr issued a decisive statement ordering his followers to withdraw immediately. 

With the Sadrists’ retreat, the Framework proceeded to form a government led by Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani, who assumed the premiership through cautious consensus. 

Despite Al-Sadr’s withdrawal from politics and his declared boycott of upcoming elections, the Shi’a arena remains turbulent with divisions — not only between Al-Sadr and the Framework, but also within the Framework itself, where differences are growing between Al-Maliki, Al-Khazali, and Kata’ib Hezbollah on one side, and Al-Sudani, who seeks to build his own electoral coalition, on the other. 

Yet it is likely that these forces will reunite after the elections to divide power, much as they have in previous cycles.