Billboards are rising across Iraq ahead of next year’s elections, some with politicians in crisp suits, others with men once known for their fatigues. They all promise changes. But the real question isn’t who wins; it’s who still carries a gun.
Iraq’s 2025 vote won’t just determine the next leaders. It will examine whether the country’s armed groups can now govern through ballots rather than force. The fighters who once battled in the streets are now competing in parliament and gaining ground. Iraq’s evolving reality is a militia democracy, a hybrid system where elections absorb violence instead of ending it.
Militias no longer threaten to overthrow the state because they have, in many ways, become the state. They control ministries, direct security forces, and dominate economic landscapes, using the ballot box to validate their existing power. The underlying theory of Iraq’s post-war politics was uncomplicated: integrate armed groups into government, and they will surrender their arms. But that hasn’t materialized. Integration did not moderate them, it systematized their influence. What has emerged instead is a form of proxy democracy where power flows more from militias, religious leaders, and foreign sponsors than from citizens.
The result is a democracy that negotiates with its armed actors rather than constrains them.
How Militias Became Vote Brokers
After the defeat of ISIS in 2017, Iraq’s Shiite militias, particularly those within the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), were formally integrated into the state’s security structure. On paper, they report to the prime minister. In practice, many operate with independent authority, political influence, and external support.
As the 2025 campaign gains momentum, candidates linked to militia-political movements dominate the electoral landscape. The Iraqi election commission has registered thousands of candidates. But what matters more than numbers is affiliation: which armed networks or patron groups they represent. The Coordination Framework, an umbrella bloc of Shiite parties aligned with Iran-backed militias, plans to run its component factions on separate electoral lists. It is specific strategy to maximize seats before recombining after the vote.
Meanwhile, an influential cleric, Al-Sadr Muqtada, the leader of the Sadrist movement, has drawn a clear boundary: his movement will boycott unless militias are dismantled. “Unless armed militias are dismantled and power returned to the state, we will not participate,” he declared. The paradox is evident. The same formations that joined politics to fight ISIS have become the most powerful political brokers in the system. They learned that, in Iraq, control of guns can easily translate into control of votes
Why Inclusion Has Not Worked
Democratic theory assumes that inclusion leads to moderation: integrate armed groups, they become parties, they lay down arms, and peace follows. Iraq has shown how fragile that logic really is.
First, Iraq’s state institutions remain too weak to monopolize violence. The militias were placed under formal military command, yet many of its brigades still operate independently. The central government lacks both the capacity and consensus to challenge these parallel forces.
Second, religious-military networks remain the backbone of mobilization. Militia-linked parties keep their old patron-client systems, economic privileges, and coercive capacity. Inclusion gave them formal legitimacy without forcing structural change. The leadership statement that “we cannot prevent any group from engaging in politics if they renounce arms” rings hollow since many of these parties still maintain armed wings.
Third, external dependencies distort the political marketplace. Foreign financing and ideological support sustain key militias, giving them resources the central government cannot match. That’s what defines proxy democracy, a system where domestic power is inseparable from foreign patronage.
So, inclusion has not transformed Iraq’s militias into civic actors. It has legitimized them. Instead of choosing between guns and ballots, they learned to use both.
Why the World Should Care
What’s happening in Baghdad won’t stay in Baghdad.
Across the region, armed movements have followed a similar script: militant groups in multiple countries are blending electoral legitimacy with military might. Iraq shows that this model can work, not to build democracy but to entrench hybrid power. If this approach spreads, it will undermine the very logic of Western-style democratization in post-conflict states.
For global powers and their allies, Iraq is still the proving ground for two decades of intervention and state-building. The strategy was to create institutions first and worry about militias later. That order has backfired. Official voices continue urging the central government to rein in external factions that “undermine sovereignty.” But when those groups win through elections, their legitimacy becomes harder to challenge.
For global democracy, Iraq’s story offers a sobering reminder: elections are not always a sign of progress. When armed parties dominate the ballot, the line between the state and non-state disappears. Iraq demonstrates that elections plus arms do not equal democracy. They produce something else: militarized politics with democratic branding.
What to Watch in the 2025 Vote
As Iraq heads toward its upcoming election, three forces will determine whether it moves toward normalization or deeper entrenchment. Turnout and legitimacy represent the first critical factor in this complex political landscape. Public faith in politics is collapsing, with many Iraqis deeply skeptical that elections can bring meaningful change when militias and elites continue to dominate the political system. Low turnout, a trend already evident in recent provincial votes, will further empower those who control extensive patronage networks and maintain significant coercive power, effectively reinforcing the existing political structure and marginalizing ordinary citizens’ voices.
Boycotts and exclusion form the second pivotal dynamic that could dramatically reshape the electoral landscape. If certain political movements follow through on their boycott threat, the electoral field will tilt even more decisively toward militia-backed blocs. Such an outcome would represent far more than a simple electoral shift; it would fundamentally undermine the principles of democratic competition, instead facilitating the further consolidation of armed-party control and deepening the militarization of Iraq’s political system.
Post-election integration, or the potential failure thereof, is the third crucial element that will define the trajectory of Iraq’s political future. The real test of the country’s democratic potential comes after the ballots are counted: will the central government finally succeed in unifying the security chain of command, or will it continue tolerating the autonomous operations of various militia groups? Recent clashes between federal police and militia brigades strongly suggest that the latter scenario is more likely, indicating a continued fragmentation of state authority and the persistent challenge of militia influence.
Without serious reform, the upcoming vote will inevitably reinforce the entrenched alliance between militias and elites rather than breaking this destructive cycle of political manipulation and armed control.
A Warning Beyond Iraq
Iraq’s upcoming election is more than a domestic milestone. It is a global warning of what happens when democracy becomes a language for armed power. The men who once ruled with weapons now rule through elections, cloaking coercion in legitimacy. For the international community, especially global powers, the choice is uncomfortable: treat these groups as normal political actors, or confront the reality that inclusion without accountability breeds a new kind of authoritarianism, the type that votes before it shoots.
If this proxy democracy solidifies, it will echo across fragile states, showing that the quickest route to power is not disarmament or reform, but rebranding, from militia commander to parliamentarian.
Democracy, in that world, doesn’t disarm its challengers. It licenses them. And the ballot box, once a symbol of peace, becomes just another way to reload.
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