A reading into the demographic sustainability of the protest movement in light of the election’s aftermath and the inevitability of reform.

The June 21 ruling by the Supreme Federal Court on the objections to Parliament’s amendment to the election law, a legislation which among many things mandated a full manual recount of all votes, seems to be a master class response to the conflicting political reactions to the election results and the allegations of fraud. The ruling, detailed over 18 pages flows logically and address the issues in a manner consistent with the constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Federal Court. While it simultaneously satisfies and upsets all parties in the dispute, yet it provides the framework for a compromise as evidenced by the wholesale acceptance of all parties of the ruling.

For instance, while it accepts the soundness of parliament’s action, it falls short of meeting its full demands. A requirement of a manual recount is ruled as an acceptable procedure to ensure the integrity of the elections, but that a wholesale annulment of the votes of overseas Iraqis, IDP’s, special voting for the armed & security forces of Kurdistan is deemed to be against the constitution. The implications of these would be: The two dominant Kurdish parties will likely lose seats in the areas where they were accused of rigging the electronic reading of the ballots, yet it preserves the seats gained from the votes of their armed & security forces with the result that they will maintain enough seats to still be relevant. The flip side is that Kurdish opposition parties, whose broader concerns were not met, yet will gain seats in areas that were lost due to the alleged fraud of the dominant parties. A manual recount will not likely alter much of the seat allocations in Baghdad, Mosul, Basra or many other centers in any meaningful way, thus preserving most of the gains of Sairun, Fatah or Nasr but might add some seats to State of Law, Wataniya or Hikma. On the other hand, a manual recount of places like Anbar while preserving overseas voting will aid Sunni parties who claim fraud and negative targeting while, maintaining some of the gains of those Sunni parties accused of such actions.

The cynical interpretation is that the Federal Court, while independent, has responded to the conflicting political pressures on it and crafted a compromise along the Lebanese formula of “no winners and no losers.” Thus, the same political forces of the past will find a solution that works for all in light of the relative shifting balance of power among them. This has already started with both the government and parliament continuing to function as normal by extending their roles until the final election results are ultimately ratified by year-end. The likely outcome is that in the next few months an agreement will be reached among the parties for the formation of a fully inclusive government along the same lines of past governments since 2003. Media coverage will be a replay of the same simplistic Iraq analysis, especially of those self-styled experts, that the political elite are perpetuating the past, ignoring the wishes of an angry electorate and risking conflict. Following them in seeing the future through the rear-view mirror will be ISIS/Jihadi experts in warning that this would create the conditions for violent conflict and the emergence of a new Super ISIS 2.0. Not wishing to be left behind, Iran hawks will argue that it will seal its dominance of Iraq in the emerging chaos at the expense of the U.S. that would once again lose all the gains achieved.

As attractive as it is to think along these lines, especially as the politicians have merely parroted the message of the protest movement but continue to follow the same old rulebook, which is particularly evident in post-election manoeuvring. This line of thinking misses the profound implications of Falah Jaber’s “The Iraqi Protest Movement: From Identity Politics to Issue Politics,” especially the extensive survey conducted between August 2015 and January 2016, coupled with Faris Kamal Nadhmi’s “Historical Bloc” thesis. Based on my understanding of these two papers, the authors argue that the 2015 protest movement which resulted in the break-up of the ethno-sectarian monolithic blocs dominant over the past 15 years, had not only succeeded in changing the way this election was fought but will continue to influence the political landscape for an extended period leading to meaningful change.

Demographic trends provide the most substantial support for this reading. Jaber’s survey notes that the under 30’s age group accounted for 60% of the protest movement. The significance extends beyond the fact that this age group accounts for over 67% of the population, in that the active component of this demographic, i.e., the 20-29 age group accounts for 17% of the total population. 10% of the population would join them as the 15-19 age group grows in the next few years – a situation that will continue given that Iraq’s population pyramid is heavily skewed towards the very young. The chart below clearly implies a steady increase in the current disenchanted ranks every year for an extended period.