Iraq to hold parliamentary elections on November 11
The elections will be the sixth parliamentary vote since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
Iraq's last general election, in October 2021, was held a year early in response to one of the core demands of a nationwide, pro-reform protest movement that began in 2019 in central and southern parts of the country. But bitter rivalry among political elites, mainly among the country's majority Shiites, delayed the process of forming a government until October 2022.
Shiite cleric and political leader Moqtada Al Sadr's efforts to form the government failed, despite his Sadrist bloc making a strong showing by winning 73 of the 329 seats in Parliament.
His desire to form a majority government only with Sunni and Kurdish parties upset his rivals in the Co-ordination Framework, an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias and political parties that suffered major losses in the election.
In June 2022, Mr Al Sadr ordered his MPs to resign from Parliament and to withdraw from the country's political process until it was purged of what he described as 'the corrupt'.
There are no indications yet whether Mr Al Sadr will take part in the upcoming election.
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