Iraq holds regular, competitive elections, and the country’s various partisan, religious, and ethnic groups generally enjoy representation in the political system. However, democratic governance is impeded in practice by corruption, militias operating outside the bounds of the law, and the weakness of formal institutions. Increasingly, Iran’s regime has been able to influence politics in Baghdad. State officials and powerful militias routinely infringe on the rights of citizens through legal and extrajudicial means.

• After a two-year delay, legislative elections took place without major incident in the Kurdistan region in October. The two largest parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), won 39 and 23 seats, respectively, neither enough for a parliamentary majority.
• In August and September, Iraqi security forces clashed with medical school graduates in Baghdad protesting a lack of job opportunities, with dozens of injuries reported.
• In June, conservative politicians introduced amendments that would allow Iraqis to turn to religious courts on issues of family law. The move would effectively allow the marriage of children as young as nine years old, and weaken existing protections for women in cases of divorce. Thousands of Iraqi women gathered on several occasions to protest the proposed amendments. Separately, the parliament passed a law criminalizing same-sex relationships in April.
• The business environment continued to improve in Iraq’s major cities, with the growth of new tourism operations and other private enterprises.
• Iranian-backed groups launched several drone attacks against bases housing US troops, and the United States launched a number of attacks against Iran-backed militia headquarters in Iraq. Amid domestic tensions over the American military presence, US and Iraqi officials reached an agreement in September on a US military withdrawal in 2026.
• In January, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced that it had fired ballistic missiles at what it claimed was an Israeli spy headquarters near Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. The Iraqi government and local Kurdish leaders denounced the strike, which Kurdish officials said killed four civilians.

This report has been abridged for Freedom in the World 2025 due to ongoing budget constraints. Freedom in the World is entirely funded by nongovernmental sources such as private foundations, corporations, and individuals like you. Please consider making a donation to support future editions of this vital resource.

For additional background information, see last year’s full report.