Post-Iraqi Election Disunity Among Iranian-backed Parties Could Threaten Their Influence in Iraq

Iranian-backed Iraqi political parties are well-positioned to expand their influence after the parliamentary elections on November 11—so long as they remain unified. The parties have political advantages now that they did not have during the last elections in October 2021. Their ability to remain united after the elections will determine how much they can influence the selection of the next Iraqi prime minister, who could in turn empower them further, align with Tehran, and undermine US interests across the Middle East.

The first advantage that the Iranian-backed parties have is that one of their main rivals—prominent Shia nationalist cleric Muqtada al Sadr—is boycotting the upcoming elections and called on his supporters not to vote.[i] Sadr won the most seats in the 2021 elections, beating the Iranian-backed parties by a significant margin and initially limiting their influence in the government formation process.[ii] Sadr ultimately failed to form a government, however, and withdrew his party from Parliament.[iii] Nevertheless, the exclusion of Sadr, who remains very popular among Iraqi Shia, has removed a significant obstacle that the Iranian-backed parties would have needed to overcome. Those parties are currently trying to court Sadr supporters to vote for them in the upcoming elections, including by organizing voter registration drives in Sadrist strongholds.[iv]

The second advantage that these parties have pertains to the structure of the election. The Iranian-backed parties pushed a revision to the Iraqi election law in 2023 that re-established Iraq’s long-standing proportional representation system that allows surplus votes for a candidate to transfer to others on the same party list.[v] The Iranian-backed parties pursued that electoral reform because their poor coordination undermined them significantly in the 2021 elections, which occurred under a semi-proportional representation system that Iraq enacted after the 2019 Tishreen protests.[vi] The parties consistently ran multiple candidates in the same district, splitting their supporters’ votes across the candidates, and ceding an advantage to the Sadrist movement.[vii] The new electoral system is meant to reduce the cost of running multiple candidates in the same district, further benefitting the often-fractious Iranian-backed political factions.

Each seat that the Iranian-backed parties win gives them greater influence in the government formation process. Iraqi elites—not voters—select the prime minister through a series of negotiations that are limited but not determined by election results. Those negotiations are about “competition for power and resources” rather than discrete policy matters.[viii] Parties negotiate ministry appointments and ultimately who becomes prime minister.[ix] The parties with the most seats in Parliament naturally have the greatest influence given that they are often needed to form a governing coalition, which requires a parliamentary majority of at least 165 seats.[x] The Iraqi political establishment has consistently appointed prime ministers who are considered manipulable since 2014 and will likely do so again after the upcoming elections.[xi]

Iranian-backed parties could still fracture after the upcoming elections, however, impeding their efforts to shape the next government. Several of these parties and others aligned with them have indicated that they will compete against one another during the elections and unite to form a coalition afterward.[xii] But  the parties’ conflicting agendas and historical rivalries with one another may threaten their unification post-elections. These parties are currently divided on several issues, moreover, including whether to reform the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and how to approach the new government in Syria.[xiii]

Iran is trying to cultivate unity among the parties that it supports likely to prevent infighting from paralyzing them and damaging them politically. Iranian officials have repeatedly expressed concern about the parties running independently and have traveled to Baghdad to promote unity among them.[xiv] Tehran almost certainly recognizes the risk that division among the parties could undermine their performance in the elections and their ability to form a government thereafter. This would in turn jeopardize Iranian efforts to dominate Iraq and use the country as a platform to further project Iranian power abroad.  

Iranian concerns about disunity among the Iranian-backed parties are particularly salient because Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al Sudani—Iraq's most popular prime minister since 2003—is seeking a second term.[xv] Sudani has behaved contrary to the parties’ interests in recent months, including by dismissing two Iranian-backed militia commanders and withdrawing a bill from Parliament that would have formally institutionalized parts of the PMF.[xvi] Those actions have eroded the Iranian-backed parties' confidence that they can control and coopt Sudani. They have responded by increasingly trying to discredit Sudani publicly, spreading allegations that he is corrupt and a Baathist.[xvii] The corruption allegations are meant to be particularly damaging because Sudani’s popularity derives largely from the perception that he has prioritized fighting corruption.[xviii]

Iraqi media has suggested that Sudani could split from the Iranian-backed parties and form an alliance with other parties after the upcoming elections.[xix] Sudani would still need to ally with other parties because it is extremely unlikely his faction will reach the 165-seat threshold to form a government, popularity notwithstanding. Iraqi media reported in October 2025 that unspecified political figures are working to form a post-election alliance led by Sudani that will include unspecified Kurdish and Sunni parties and exclude Iranian-backed parties.[xx] This report mirrors Sadr’s alliance with the Kurdistan Democratic Party and former Parliament Speaker Mohammad al Halbousi’s Progress Party after the 2021 elections in an attempt to exclude the Iranian-backed parties from the government formation process.[xxi] Sudani will need to overcome the possibility of low voter turnout, however. An internal memo circulated among the Iranian-backed parties in September 2025 warned of 20-percent turnout compared to the 40-percent turnout in the 2021 elections.[xxii]

The Iranian-backed parties are discussing possible prime minister candidates regardless of the challenges that they face. The potential candidates include individuals who have extensive ties with Iran and have long abetted Iranian infiltration and subversion in Iraq, such as Badr Organization head Hadi al Ameri, Popular Mobilization Commission head Faleh al Fayyadh, and State of Law Coalition head Nouri al Maliki.[xxiii] For example, Fayyadh is under US sanctions for cooperating with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to violently suppress the Iraqi Tishreen protests in 2019.[xxiv]

Any of those rumored candidates becoming prime minister would be extremely detrimental to the core US objectives in Iraq of containing Iranian influence and disarming Iranian-backed Iraqi militias. These candidates would enable Iran to reassert itself in Iraq at a time when Iran is trying to recover from its other losses across the Middle East. Providing such sanctuary for Iran to rebuild its Axis of Resistance risks reversing some of the recent progress toward eroding Iranian dominance across the region. Moreover, some of those candidates contributed to the collapse of the Iraqi Army and fall of half of Iraq to the Islamic State after the United States withdrew in 2011, reflecting the risk that they could again present to long-term Iraqi stability.[xxv]

The United States should orient its diplomacy in Iraq toward supporting the emergence of an Iraqi nationalist government that seeks to decrease Iranian influence in Iraq. Unspecified Shia parties have reportedly tried in recent weeks to attract political support from the United States ahead of the elections.[xxvi] These parties may be the ones led by Sudani and National State Forces Alliance head Ammar al Hakim. Iraqi media reported in October 2025 that the Sudani-Sunni-Kurd post-election alliance unspecified political figures are reportedly attempting to form will potentially exclude Iranian-backed parties due to US concerns.[xxvii] Iraqi media noted that the report about this alliance follows meetings between unspecified Iraqi political parties and US Special Envoy to Iraq Mark Savaya.[xxviii] The United States should help Iraqi political parties resist Iranian-backed coercion and highlight any Iranian-backed effort to manipulate the outcome of the elections and post-election negotiations.