The 2025 elections are not so much a contest for parliamentary seats as they are a battle of political vengeance — one that the Coordination Framework is waging to reclaim what it lost in 2021, as anxiety continues to dominate the mood of an angry Iraqi public.

The term “revenge vote” best captures the spirit of the sixth election since the political system was born after the United States’ 2003 occupation of Iraq. Scheduled for 11 November, it marks the return of most Coordination Framework parties to the electoral arena — parties that had emerged after the 2021 parliamentary elections to form a government. They had lost roughly 70 seats in the previous elections, many of which went to al-Sadr’s bloc, which won the largest number of seats at the time, and to Nouri al-Maliki, who joined the Framework as a key partner against the Sadrists. The remaining seats went to civil and independent groups. 

When ‘state’ and ‘non-state’ forces both declined 

The Fatah Alliance — which includes Popular Mobilisation Forces factions such as Badr (led by Hadi al-Amiri), Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (led by Qais al-Khazali), and Ahmad al-Asadi — lost 31 seats, falling from 48 in 2018 to only 17 in 2021. 

Similarly, the National State Forces Alliance, led by Ammar al-Hakim and Haider al-Abadi, which was supposed to represent a current opposed to the “non-state” factions that possess arms, suffered the steepest fall. Their combined seats dropped from 40 in 2018 to just four in 2021 — a loss of 36 seats. 

By contrast, the Sadrist Movement’s seats rose from 54 in 2018 to 73 in 2021 — a gain of 19. Al-Maliki’s State of Law Coalition also increased its share, from 25 to 33 seats, gaining eight. This meant that of the roughly 70 seats the Framework’s forces had lost, 27 moved between Shia Islamist parties — from the losers to the winners — while more than 40 seats went to civil forces and independents. 

Faced with such a devastating loss and the rise of the Sadrists — whose project threatened to exclude the Framework from power and strip it of influence in selecting the prime minister, ministers, and other key positions — the Shia political map shifted. The previous distinction between “state” and “non-state” actors dissolved, and all major Shia blocs gathered under one umbrella: the Coordination Framework. It rejected both the 2021 election results and al-Sadr’s project. When al-Sadr later withdrew and his MPs resigned, the Framework filled the vacuum, increasing its parliamentary presence and eventually forming a government with Kurdish and Sunni partners. 

An empty but uneasy field for the Framework 

In theory, the Shia Islamist parties should have had little to fear this time. The Sadrists were boycotting, the Sainte-Laguë law is reinstated, and the first-past-the-post system introduced after the Tishreen protests is gone. The protests’ anti-armed factions sentiment no longer dominates as it had in 2021. 

Yet, despite holding all the cards, the Framework and its allied armed factions are facing new threats — from veiled Western intentions to Israel’s increasingly aggressive posture towards the so-called Axis of Resistance. The United States, meanwhile, is sending mixed and confusing signals, turning senior politicians and state advisers into amateur analysts trying to read the tea leaves. To soothe their fears, they point to American oil companies like Chevron as proof that Washington harbours no ill will towards Baghdad’s ruling order. 

But regional uncertainty is not their only worry. Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani — himself a product of the Framework and the Dawa Party — has grown beyond its bounds. He has built an image of competence through the media, clientelism, and infrastructure projects funded by oil revenues, exploiting relative security and stability. 

The concern is not that al-Sudani opposes the Framework’s principles, but that he operates outside its traditional script. He offers a new narrative that could resonate with voters, elevating him as a leader in his own right — a “head” figure much like al-Sadr, not a subordinate bound by collective “consultation”. His talk of a second term without the Framework’s prior blessing only deepens unease among its elders. 

Elections that define Iraq’s identity: Echoes of 2005 in 2025 

Framework leaders describe the 2025 elections as “decisive” and “existential” — comparable in significance to those of 2005, the first after the US occupation. The stakes are high not only for Shia factions but also for Sunni and Kurdish parties, though the latter remain consumed by internal rivalries and regional leadership struggles. 

The 2025 vote echoes 2005 in another way: it is the first election the Sadrists boycott since then. It is also seen as a test of the Framework’s ability to recover from its 2021 defeat and reassert dominance amid Iran’s shifting regional position. Facing sanctions, diminished influence in Syria and Lebanon, and mounting US–Israeli pressure, Tehran now looks to Iraq as its last dependable ally. 

Meanwhile, Washington’s cautious silence leaves Baghdad suspended in a political purgatory — an in-between world awaiting its regional fate. 

A growing population, shrinking electorate 

One of the most contentious debates centres on voter turnout. Although boycotts do not legally affect election legitimacy, participation rates carry political meaning. In 2021, of the 25 million Iraqis eligible to vote, only 22 million received electoral cards — and just nine million cast their ballots. Participation stood at 41 percent of cardholders, or only 36 percent of those eligible. 

For 2025, roughly 29 million Iraqis were eligible, including four million new voters born between 2004 and 2007. Yet, the electoral commission’s latest figures list only 21.4 million registered voters — eight million fewer than expected — due to the exclusion of those without biometric cards. 

Even among those 21.4 million, 3.5 million have not yet collected their cards a month before election day, potentially reducing the electorate to 18 million. Based on past trends, only nine to eleven million Iraqis are expected to vote — the same as in 2018 and 2021. 

If only nine million vote out of 29 million eligible, true participation would stand at just 31 percent, despite official claims of higher turnout calculated from the smaller pool of biometric cardholders. 

Minority rule 

In 2021, at the height of polarisation between armed factions and Tishreen activists, the Coordination Framework parties together received around 1.65 million votes — just six percent of all eligible adults. The Sadrists accounted for another three percent. In short, Iraq was ruled by a political minority. 

Meanwhile, about 19 million Iraqis — frustrated and ideologically detached from the ruling class — remained silent. This vast, angry majority has the potential to overturn the entire political order if ever united under a shared vision. 

The protest-born Emtidad Movement, inexperienced in politics, won 300,000 votes in 2021 — about one-third of the Sadrist tally. Together with Ishraqat Kanoon and independents, Tishreen-inspired groups garnered over 560,000 votes. 

Three variables shaping the next vote 

Three factors are expected to influence turnout and voting patterns. 
First, around one million Sadrist voters would boycott intentionally, as part of al-Sadr’s strategy to demonstrate his movement’s absence. 

Second, many Tishreen-aligned voters are disillusioned after Emtidad MPs defected to pro-Framework blocs such as State of Law and al-Sudani’s alliance. Disenchanted, they are likely to boycott again or rally behind Adnan al-Zurfi’s Alternative Coalition, joined by prominent anti-Framework figures such as Hussein al-Gharabi and MP Sajad Salem. 

Third, al-Sudani’s Reconstruction and Development Coalition could draw support away from within the Framework itself, attracting figures from State of Law and other allied movements. Former prime minister Iyad Allawi’s National Coalition and some Tishreen-linked groups, such as Nazil Akhudh Haqqi, are also expected to compete. 

The death of the ‘independent’ idea 

The notion of the independent candidate has lost its lustre. Many who won as independents in 2021 soon joined traditional blocs, proving the concept hollow. Even those with genuine political visions realised that individual candidacy was futile in Iraq’s patronage-driven system. Figures like Sajad Salem responded by founding parties, such as Istiqlal, and joining broader coalitions. 

The 2023 electoral law, based on the Sainte-Laguë formula, further buries the independent model. Unlike the 2021 system, which allowed individual candidates to win by topping local votes, the new law favours large coalitions that could aggregate votes nationally. 

The results are stark: in 2021, 789 of 3,249 candidates (24 percent) ran as independents. In 2025, only 76 out of 7,768 — less than one percent — are doing so, a 96 percent drop. 

Everything painted as ‘exceptional’ 

Iraq’s political forces have long described every election as “exceptional” and “historic”. Yet this one truly is— not by its own nature, but by the fragility of the system that produced it. 

In this round, numbers, laws, and alliances could all shift — yet the system remains brittle, generating “exceptions” and existential stakes with each cycle. This time, that sense of exceptionality is deepened by the Sadrists’ absence, the persistent apathy of the silent majority, and the turbulence of the regional and global order.