On paper, the path seems wide open for Iraqi women to participate in political life. The constitution reserves a quarter of parliamentary seats for women, and in every parliamentary election, thousands of female candidates enter the race and compete against each other on party slates that brag about “women’s empowerment” programs. But once polling centers are closed and ballots are counted, the political landscape reveals its true colors: women’s representation is shrinking. Their contribution to politics is confined to narrow spaces defined by traditional parties that hold the money, the influence, and vote-acquisition tools. The final results of the parliamentary elections held on November 11 show that women won 84 seats. That’s just one seat above the constitutional quota. Yet, this tally is lower than that of the previous parliament, when women secured 96 seats, accounting for 29% of the chamber’s 329 seats. Activists who spoke to Alhurra blame the decline on what they view as weak performance by women both as candidates and as voters, compounded by the dominance of major parties over the country’s political scene.
In the November elections, only 25 women won the seats by garnering enough votes through open competition. The remaining 59 women entered the parliament through the quota system. According to official statistics from the Electoral Commission, 2,247 women ran for parliament out of a total of 7,743 male and female candidates. Iraqi legal advocate Nawal Fajjeh, who withdrew from the race, says: “Elections in Iraq are a political game. The main player is money, followed by power and the political figureheads who dominate the political scene in the country. That’s why I withdrew. It wasn’t a fair competition.” A report by the Iraqi Parliamentary Observatory on the previous legislative cycle (2022–2025) shows that only 75% of women MPs participated in parliamentary activities during general sessions of the fifth legislative term. To gauge women MP’s activities, the Observatory monitored their participation in the first and second readings of bills and draft laws, their engagement in general-topic debates, and their voting activity in points of order sessions.
Attorney Neeran Aziz al-Zahawi notes that the role of Iraqi women in politics is largely “to fill up seats,” adding that the issues female MPs are allowed to discuss are limited and are mostly confined to topics related to family and women. In the recent elections, Zahawi ran on a ticket promoting civil rights and issues. She did not win, just like many independent and civilian-supported candidates who could not collect enough votes to pass the threshold to parliament. “The prevalent political ecosystem gives precedence to loyalty over professional competence,” she tells Alhurra. “When it comes to women, they still look upon them as a secondary option, no matter how experienced they are. Still, she believes women made their presence well felt in the campaign, noting that: “many candidates ran thoughtful and professional campaigns, but results are still determined by party rules and laws—not by electoral programs.” Zahawi argues that women face two main obstacles: partisan environments that do not allow female candidates real decision-making space, and complex electoral procedures. She also believes social and cultural pressures weaken women’s performance as voters. “Husbands or brothers often direct women on how to vote,” she says, placing them under a form of “guardianship” that denies them the will to formulate their own opinion or make their own independent political choice.
A survey titled “Women’s Electoral Tendencies in Iraq”, conducted by the Bayan Center for Studies and Planning on November 9, found that most respondents felt female MPs in the fifth parliament did not support women’s issues, and that women’s representation had not become an effective tool for change in favor of women inside parliament. The survey polled women from various Iraqi regions and of different social groups. According to the survey, 60.9% of women said female MPs no longer prioritized women’s issues, including important ones such as domestic violence and the personal status laws. Respondents also said women MPs failed to pass a bill for the prevention of domestic violence and could not block amendments to the personal status law. Both instances were seen as evidence, they say, of weak political performance that negatively shaped women’s views of their representatives.
Academist and rights activist Tahira Dakhel Taher agrees that women MPs, and especially independents, did not perform well in the previous parliament. Rather than advocating for Iraqi women and issues of concern to citizens, they aligned themselves with major political blocs and parties, she added. “We have yet to see a women’s bloc or a group of female MPs exerting real pressure inside parliament on major political decisions,” Taher tells Alhurra. The Iraq’s 2024 census showed near parity between men and women in the population. Yet, the number of women who voted was lower than that of men, according to preliminary results from the Electoral Commission. Legal expert Wael al-Bayati views this disparity as a major hurdle affecting women’s political influence. He notes that women’s political impact remains limited, even with broad parliamentary representation. “This weakness stems from the nature of political parties in Iraq,” he explains. “Most are traditional parties that do not believe in a meaningful role for women in politics. Add to that the difficulty of political life here, which prevents many women from engaging in it.” Al-Bayati also cites social factors: entrenched male dominance in Iraqi society and tribal influences that restrict women’s participation in political activity.
