Oversight is optional: How Iraqi democracy is being hollowed out

Iraq is once again in election season. Streets are filled with campaign posters and promises of change, but few Iraqis expect to see a difference.

The rituals became familiar: speeches about reform, banners calling for reconstruction, and candidates who pledge to rebuild trust while relying on the same old networks of money and power.

What truly defines this election is what remains absent. Iraq’s Political Parties Law of 2015 was meant to regulate who can run, how campaigns are financed, and whether parties maintain links to armed groups.

Yet a decade later, some of its core articles on financing, transparency, and armed affiliations have never been enforced in practice. Its non-enforcement is not an oversight; it is a political choice that keeps Iraq’s democracy suspended between legality and impunity.

The forgotten law

When Iraq’s parliament passed the Political Parties Law in 2015, it promised to regulate party registration, funding, and links to armed and foreign-funded organisations.

In principle, the law requires parties to disclose funding sources, submit annual financial reports, and prohibits parties established in the form of military or paramilitary organisations.

In practice, many of these articles have been rarely enforced. The oversight bodies lack full authority to investigate financial violations, and few sanctions for non-disclosure have been publicly documented.

Meanwhile, parties with known ties to armed or paramilitary structures continue to participate with little visible evidence of the law’s disciplinary mechanisms being applied.

The registry of party finances remains largely unavailable to the public, and civil-society monitors describe regulation of party funds as “a slogan rather than reality”.

The law now functions more as ornament than oversight; it stands as a sign that while regulations exist, their enforcement remains optional.

Money without oversight

With no enforcement of disclosure or spending limits, Iraq’s electoral field continues to tilt toward those who can spend the most. The dominant political parties, backed by vast financial resources, no longer rely on programs or voter engagement to secure influence.

The European Union Election Observation Mission’s 2021 report found that “unregulated campaign spending negatively affected the level playing field”.

A 2023 review by the Federal Board of Supreme Audit showed that fewer than 15 percent of candidates submitted complete campaign finance disclosures, and none faced legal consequences, evidence of how electoral rules remain largely symbolic.

Reporting ahead of the 2025 vote indicates that parties are again directing “substantial funds toward candidate recruitment and voter outreach.” According to Iraqi economic analyst Manar al-Obaidi, an estimated three billion dollars have already been spent on campaigning in 2025.

This spending surge reflects not only the dominance of money in politics but also the failure to enforce the very law designed to prevent it.

The absence of meaningful oversight means state resources, patronage networks and private funds flow into campaigns with little trace. Iraq’s political parties law enables electoral corruption by setting requirements that are rarely enforced, giving those with large financial and human resources an unfair advantage over their counterparts.

In practice, this means that newcomers and reform-oriented lists lack access to capital, while established parties mobilise funds, deploy informal networks and transform financial power into electoral advantage.

Armed groups in politics

Iraq’s party system continues to blur the line between civilian politics and organised coercion. The Political Parties Law prohibits parties that have military or paramilitary wings, yet political parties linked to armed factions still contest elections and hold seats.

Harakat Huqooq is widely profiled as the political wing of Kataib Hezbollah, a US-designated group, and its leaders operate openly in parliament and in pre-election manoeuvring.

Election observers and major media outlets have repeatedly flagged the effect of armed groups' influence on the campaign environment. The EU Election Observation Mission noted that intimidation, the use of influence networks, and unregulated resources harmed the level playing field in 2021, problems that have not been structurally addressed before 2025.

Recent reporting on this cycle highlights the role of Kataib Hezbollah and Asaib Ahl al-Haq as actors with political wings that remain active and armed, even as officials state that disarmament is a condition for participation.

This has resulted in a hybrid arena. Parties with coercive capabilities can mobilise voters and intimidate opponents in ways that undermine electoral fairness.

Occasional government attempts to discipline armed groups, for instance, following clashes involving militia members at the Agriculture Directorate in Baghdad, highlight the state’s limited leverage and the enduring autonomy of these factions.

What non-enforcement means for democracy

The failure to apply the Political Parties Law does more than weaken regulation; it reshapes the nature of Iraqi democracy itself. When parties can conceal their finances, receive unmonitored funds, or maintain armed wings without consequence, elections become a mechanism for recycling power rather than redistributing it.

Formal procedures (registration, voting, government formation) still take place, but they occur within a closed circuit of elite negotiation.

Iraq’s political system operates through selective legality, where laws exist but are enforced only when convenient to those in power. The gap between legality and practice allows those with access to money, arms, or patronage to dominate, while reformist and emerging movements face systematic exclusion.

Surveys show that large segments of the population are sceptical of elections, as only 29 percent of Iraqis believed the 2021 elections were entirely free and fair.

The non-enforcement of the law thus serves a political purpose. It maintains equilibrium among the ruling factions while preserving the illusion of pluralism. For citizens, this means that democracy continues to exist in form but not in substance, a process repeated every few years to renew legitimacy without reform.

A system beyond the law

As election day comes, only a limited share of voters will head to the polls, most aware that the outcome is unlikely to bring real change.

Across the country, candidates and party leaders will watch closely for early counts, already preparing to negotiate alliances and divide senior posts.

Within days, the results will be announced and described as another smooth and technically successful election. Yet the deeper structure will remain untouched. The Political Parties Law, conceived as a foundation for democratic accountability, continues to sit idle.

In Iraq, law has become performance. It affirms the appearance of governance rather than restraining power. Each election reproduces that illusion of change, oversight, and rule-based competition. Until the country enforces the laws it already has, reform will remain a slogan.

Strengthening enforcement of the Political Parties Law would not transform Iraq overnight, but it would begin to restore the principle that power must answer to the rules it claims to uphold.

Hayder Al-Shakeri is a research fellow with the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House

Follow him on X: @HayderSH