Women candidates won 76 seats in Iraqi provincial councils, 17 of which were outside the quota system.
According to the final results of the elections, 76 female candidates secured seats in the provincial councils, passing the quota allocated to women according to the electoral law.
Out of a total of 285 seats in the provincial councils (excluding the Kurdistan Region),the Electoral Law allocated more than 25 percent of the seats (equivalent to 75 seats) to women.
According to follow-ups by KirkukNow, out of 76 female candidates who won seats in the provincial councils, 17 of them won depending on the votes they received without resorting to the quota system, and three of them won the highest votes on their lists.
Only in Kirkuk, women passed the quota, after winning five seats out of a total of 16 seats in the Kirkuk provincial council, where four seats were allocated to them according to the quota system. Two of these female candidates won based on their votes.
Two voters in front of a polling station in Khanaqin, Diyala, December 18, 2023 / Photo by: KirkukNow.
In Ninawa province, 7 women won seats, the same number determined by the quota system. Four of them won without resorting to the quota, and two of them won the highest votes on their lists.
In Diyala, four women won seats in the provincial council, which is the same percentage decided according to the quota system, but two of them won based on the votes they received, while in Salahaddin province, four women won seats based on the quota system.
Women candidates who won seats in other provinces including: Baghdad (13 women), four of them won without resorting to the quota, Dhi Qar (5 women), three of them did not resort to the quota, Babylon (5 women), one of them did not resort to the quota, and in Al-Qadisiyah (4 women). One of them did not resort to the quota.
Depending on the quota system, a large number of women won seats in other provinces such as Maysan (4 seats), Muthanna (3 seats), Wasit (4 seats), Al-Anbar (4 seats), Karbala (4 seats), Najaf (4 seats) and Basra. (6 seats).
According to estimates by the Iraqi Central Organization for Statistics, females represent 50 percent of the Iraqi population.
Manual counting and sorting of votes of the special voting, Duhok, December 2023/ Photo by: Kirkuk Now.
In addition to establishing the quota system, Article 20 of the Iraqi constitution granted women the right to participate in public affairs as well as political rights such as voting and candidacy.
The current Iraqi cabinet headed by Muhammad Shia’ Al-Sudani includes three women out of a total of 23 ministers.
Meanwhile, 83 seats out of 329 seats in the Iraqi Parliament have been allocated to women, equivalent to 25 percent of the seats.
In the last parliamentary elections held in October 2021, women were able to pass the quota and secure 97 seats, 57 of them won without resorting to the quota system.
In the provincial council elections which took place on December 18, 2023 in 15 Iraqi governorates, out of about 6,000 candidates, more than 1,600 women competed to win seats in the councils.
