Country Profile:

Upcoming Elections

  • Parliamentary
    March 7, 2010
  • Referendum
    March 7, 2010
Iraq

Description of government structure:

  • Chief of State: President Jalal TALABANI *
  • Head of Government: Prime Minister Nuri al-MALIKI
  • Assembly: Iraq has a unicameral Council of Representatives (Majlis an-Nuwwb al-ʿIrqiyy) with 325 seats.

* The President is one of three members of a Transitional Presidency Council, which is elected by the legislature.

Description of electoral system:

  • The President is elected by parliament to serve a 4-year term.
  • In the Council of Representatives (Majlis an-Nuwwb al-ʿIrqiyy) 325 members are elected through an open-list proportional representation system to serve 4-year terms.***

*** A new electoral law in 2009 increased the size of the Council from 275 members (formerly 230 seats from party lists in each governorate and 45 national compensatory seats) and replaced a closed-list system with open party lists. Under the new system, 310 seats are apportioned among 18 governorates, 7 are nationwide compensatory seats, 7 are reserved to sectarian groups in specific governorates, and one seat reserved to Christians is allocated nationwide. The seven national compensatory seats are allocated to make the overall distribution of seats by party as proportional as possible to the overall distribution of votes by party. For more information, see IHEC and UNAMI links in the Iraq Country Profile.

Population:

  • Population: 28,945,569 (July 2009 est.)

Future elections

  • Parliamentary - March 7, 2010
  • Referendum - March 7, 2010

Past elections

Last Updated on 02/04/2010