Kurdistan
Voters from the Kurdistan Region cast their ballots in the Iraqi parliamentary election in Erbil on November 11, 2025. Photo: Bilind T. Abdullah/Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Following the announcement of the preliminary results of the Iraqi parliamentary elections, the significant gap in parliamentary seats between Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani’s Reconstruction and Development Coalition (RDC) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which secured the first and second highest number of votes respectively, has raised concern for the KDP, prompting the party to call for amendments to the election law before the next parliamentary vote.
"After the election, one of the main tasks of our representatives, in coordination with other blocs, will be to work on amending the election law," Jaffar Eminki, head of the KDP's election department, told Rudaw.
According to preliminary results from Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), Sudani’s coalition came first with 1,317,446 votes, securing 45 parliamentary seats.
The KDP followed with 1,109,934 votes but won only 27 seats.
Iraq uses a proportional representation system based on the Sainte-Laguë method in which the country’s provinces serve as constituencies. Under this system, total party votes are divided by a fixed quotient to allocate parliamentary seats.
The distribution of seats and the turnout in the parliamentary election law have divided Iraq into 18 different constituencies, with each province allocated a number of seats based on its population, which has limited competition within a single constituency.
Experts say the results of the elections highlight imbalances in Iraq’s current election system and suggest distributing seats between single- and multi-constituency systems as the most suitable solution for future elections.
"There is a degree of fairness in the distribution of seats across constituencies, but the problem lies in voter turnout, which is high in the Kurdistan Region and low in a province like Baghdad," Aram Bradosti, an election expert, told Rudaw.
Ahead of the Tuesday elections, the KDP and most parties in the Kurdistan Region criticized the election law. President Masoud Barzani, leader of the KDP, described the law as “unfair,” saying it “must be amended for the next election” during his party’s last campaign rally in Erbil.
"It is not fair that a seat in Erbil costs 40,000 votes, with a turnout of 70 to 80 percent, while in another Iraqi province, in southern Iraq, the same seat costs 2,000 votes, and the turnout is less than 20 percent," said President Barzani.
The Iraqi parliament has 329 seats, including nine quota seats reserved for the minorities.
"To ensure fairness, 300 seats of the Iraqi parliament should be divided among the 18 constituencies, and the remaining 20 seats should be contested at the Iraq-wide level,” Bradosti said.
Sarbast Amedi, former head of the Iraqi election commission, while considering the Iraqi election law "unfair," also supports the suggestion that some seats be contested in a single constituency system and the rest in a multi-constituency system.
"Work must be done to amend the election law and incorporate these suggestions, and the Saint-Laguë system should also be rectified," Amedi said.
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