Elections in Iraq - History

History

Under the Iraqi constitution of 1925, Iraq was a constitutional monarchy, with a bicameral legislature consisting of an elected House of Representatives and an appointed Senate. The lower house was elected every four years by manhood suffrage (women did not vote). The first Parliament met in 1925. Ten general elections were held before the overthrow of the monarchy in 1958. The electoral system, however, was manipulated by the King and his advisors, who were Sunni Muslims, to ensure that the Shi'a majority were prevented from taking power.

Between 1958 and 2003 Iraq was ruled by a series of military governments, all dominated by Iraqi Arabs, particularly after the emergence of the Ba'ath Party in the early 1960s. Under the regime of Saddam Hussein, who came to power in 1979, Kurds were persecuted. Furthermore, Arabs who were non-Ba'athist or non-Arab inclined (most notably those of Shi'ite faith) were also persecuted. Saddam's rule was largely run by Arabs from Tikrit (a mainly Sunni area), his home region. On October 16, 2002, after a well-publicized show election, Iraqi officials declared that Saddam had been re-elected to another seven-year term as President by a 100% unanimous vote of all 11,445,638 eligible Iraqis, eclipsing the 99.96% received in 1995. Outside governments dismissed the vote as lacking credibility.