Iraq has more parties than seats in coming election

The Institute for the Study of war has a fact sheet on the upcoming election.

Just a couple of interesting factoids:

  1. There are 502 parties with 440 open seats up for grabs.
  2. There are on average 33 people running for each seat for a total of 13,431 candidates.
There is much more in the report. It does not appear that incumbency is an advantage in this election. In that regard it might be called a "change" election. The Sunnis who did not participate in 2005 appear to be enthusiastic about this election.

These elections are of Provincial Assemblies which would be similar to state legislative elections in the US. The national parliamentary elections will be later and that should see a big change away from the sectarian base of the current government. In the current election the sectarian parties are not polling well.

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