All Policy Analysis by Ali Al-Mikdam

After months of deadlock over who will hold the position of Iraq’s president and prime minister in a laborious process towards government formation, an agreement finally seems possible, and perhaps even likely.

The question of how Iraqi militias will respond to their decreased presence in parliament becomes increasingly salient with the finalization of Iraq’s election results.

Iraqis are preparing to participate in the country’s most important elections since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003. As all parties prepare for the ballot, interviews with those who choose to participate and those boycotting it emphasize what’s at stake.

Starting in early October 2019, when Iraq witnessed a swell of large protests in the capital, Baghdad, along with other cities in the south, protesters were violently repressed—the harshest crackdown on protesters since the downfall of Saddam’s regime in 2003.