T he current obsession with the Bihar election on November 11, 2025 notwithstanding, India also needs to focus on another election taking place on the same day, 4,000 kilometres away, in Iraq.

Features and significance

While some systemic features of the sixth Iraqi parliamentary election are relatively easy to comprehend, others may make even hardened Bihar pollsters blink. There are 7,744 candidates for 329 seats with 32 parties and a large number of independents in the election based on proportional representation. Nearly 40% of candidates are below 40 years of age. In an otherwise patriarchal society, close to a third of the candidates are women, leveraging a quarter of seats reserved for them. The results might trigger months of horse-trading among the three sectarian groups, broad

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