Iraqi Parliament Passes Controversial Vote Law Amendments

FILE - Iraqi lawmakers attend a parliament session in Baghdad, Iraq, on Sept. 3, 2018. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim, File)
FILE - Iraqi lawmakers attend a parliament session in Baghdad, Iraq, on Sept. 3, 2018. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim, File)
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Iraqi Parliament Passes Controversial Vote Law Amendments

FILE - Iraqi lawmakers attend a parliament session in Baghdad, Iraq, on Sept. 3, 2018. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim, File)
FILE - Iraqi lawmakers attend a parliament session in Baghdad, Iraq, on Sept. 3, 2018. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim, File)

Iraqi lawmakers passed early Monday controversial amendments to the country's election law that could undermine the chances for smaller parties and independent candidates to win seats in future polls.

The amendments increase the size of electoral districts, a move widely backed by the Coordination Framework, a coalition of Iran-backed parties. The coalition forms the majority bloc in the current parliament, which brought Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani to power last year.

The bill passed in a 206-12 vote in the 329-seat assembly, according to media reports. The remaining lawmakers were absent from the hourslong session, which started on Sunday night, The Associated Press said.

The amendments also reverse key articles passed ahead of the 2021 federal election and redraw the electoral maps to have Iraq return to one electoral district per each governorate.

Several Iraqi political blocs and independent parliamentarians had rejected the amendments and stalled the vote for weeks. Hundreds of protesters gathered over the past weeks to voice their opposition.

Independent lawmakers who objected to the law walked out of a previous session, causing it to be postponed due to a lack of quorum. They attempted to stall the vote again overnight by protesting and disturbing the count, before Iraqi security forces escorted them out of the assembly hall.

On Saturday, hundreds protested in Baghdad against the new amendments, while some protesters in other parts of Iraq blocked roads with burning tires.

“These amendments will only fortify the rulers in power and their corruption, and exclude independent and new political groups," one of the protesters, Mohamed Al-Daami, told The Associated Press. He described the amendments as “unjust.”

Iraq's previous election law was adopted following mass anti-government protests in 2019. That legislation gave independent candidates and grassroots movements a better chance at winning seats. Its drafting and the subsequent 2021 elections involved technical assistance from the United Nations. The vote was lauded as a “substantial achievement” by Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the UN special representative to Iraq.

The outcome of that election shocked the Coordination Framework, which lost seats while its chief political rival, firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr was declared the clear victor.

Al-Sadr's political bloc gained 74 seats in the 2021 polls, while the Fatah Coalition, made up of Iran-backed parties, lost nearly half of its votes and more than two-thirds of its seats, compared to the 2018 polls.

Despite emerging as the clear winner in the election, al-Sadr did not win a parliamentary majority needed to form the government. An alliance with Sunni and Kurdish parties fell apart after the cleric, frustrated by months of political impasse, ordered his lawmakers to resign in a sudden move that many observers said was a miscalculation.

The move allowed his political rivals in the Coordination Framework to amass the needed parliamentary majority to form the government and name al-Sudani as prime minister.

Amending the electoral law and reversing the articles that effectively disempowered the ruling coalition from the vote emerged as a priority for the new government.

Iraq's provincial elections are slated for Nov. 6, the country's first local vote in a decade. Independent candidates fear the elections under the new law will empower ruling parties, which they accuse of rampant corruption.

The Iraqi government hast not yet scheduled the country's next general elections.



Sudan Army Says Seizes Full Control of Presidential Palace in Khartoum

Sudanese men walk past a bullet-riddled building in Khartoum's twin-city Omdurman on March 20, 2025. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)
Sudanese men walk past a bullet-riddled building in Khartoum's twin-city Omdurman on March 20, 2025. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)
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Sudan Army Says Seizes Full Control of Presidential Palace in Khartoum

Sudanese men walk past a bullet-riddled building in Khartoum's twin-city Omdurman on March 20, 2025. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)
Sudanese men walk past a bullet-riddled building in Khartoum's twin-city Omdurman on March 20, 2025. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)

Sudan’s military said it retook the Republican Palace in Khartoum, the last bastion in the capital of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), after nearly two years of fighting.
Social media videos showed its soldiers inside giving the date as the 21st day of Ramadan, which was Friday. A Sudanese military officer wearing a captain’s rank made the announcement in the video, and its details confirmed the troops were inside the compound.
The palace appeared to be in ruins in part, with soldiers’ steps crunching broken tiles underneath their boots.
The fall of the Republican Palace — a compound along the Nile River that was the seat of government before the war — marks another battlefield gain for Sudan’s military. It has made steady advances in recent months under army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan.
It means the rival RSF under Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, has been expelled from the capital of Khartoum after Sudan’s war began in April 2023.
The RSF did not immediately acknowledge the loss, which likely won’t stop fighting in the war as the group and its allies still hold territory elsewhere in Sudan.

The RSF, which earlier this year began establishing a parallel government, maintains control of parts of Khartoum and neighbouring Omdurman, as well as western Sudan, where it is fighting to take over the army's last stronghold in Darfur, al-Fashir.
Capturing the capital could hasten the army's full takeover of central Sudan, and harden the east-west territorial division of the country between the two forces.

Both sides have vowed to continue fighting for the remainder of the country, and no efforts at peace talks have materialized.
The war has killed more than 28,000 people, forced millions to flee their homes and left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive as famine sweeps parts of the country. Other estimates suggest a far higher death toll.