page_title: Politics of Iraq
section_title: Iraqi parliamentary election, December 2005
hierarchical_section_title: Politics of Iraq / Elections / Iraqi parliamentary election, December 2005
context_page_description: The politics of Iraq take place in a framework of a federal parliamentary representative democratic republic. It is a multi-party system whereby the executive power is exercised by the Prime Minister of the Council of Ministers as the head of government, as well as the President of Iraq, and legislative power is vested in the Council of Representatives and the Federation Council.
  The current Prime Minister of Iraq is Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, who holds most of the executive authority and appointed the Council of Ministers, which acts as a cabinet and/or government.
  The Economist Intelligence Unit rated Iraq an "authoritarian regime" in 2019.
context_section_description: Following the ratification of the Constitution of Iraq on 15 October 2005, a general election was held on 15 December to elect the permanent 275-member Iraqi Council of Representatives.
  The elections took place under a list system, whereby voters chose from a list of parties and coalitions. 230 seats were apportioned among Iraq's 18 governorates based on the number of registered voters in each as of the January 2005 elections, including 59 seats for Baghdad Governorate. The seats within each governorate were allocated to lists through a system of Proportional Representation. An additional 45 "compensatory" seats were allocated to those parties whose percentage of the national vote total (including out of country votes) exceeds the percentage of the 275 total seats that they have been allocated. Women were required to occupy 25% of the 275 seats. The change in the voting system gave more weight to Arab Sunni voters, who make up most of the voters in several provinces. It was expected that these provinces would thus return mostly Sunni Arab representatives, after most Sunnis boycotted the last election.
  Turnout was high (79.6%).  The White House was encouraged by the relatively low levels of violence during polling, with one insurgent group making good on a promised election day moratorium on attacks, even going so far as to guard the voters from attack. President Bush frequently pointed to the election as a sign of progress in rebuilding Iraq. However, post-election violence threatened to plunge the nation into civil war, before the situation began to calm in 2007. The election results themselves produced a shaky coalition government headed by Nouri al-Maliki.
caption: Iraqis in the predominantly Sunni city of Husaybah, wait in lines to vote during the national election.
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