IRAQ: Parliamentary elections: the vote system for Christian candidates questioned again
Cardinal Sako’s warning call to Christians against voting for the allegedly Christian Babylon Movement was heard
By Willy Fautré, director of Human Rights Without Frontiers
HRWF (24.11.2025) – As reported by Shafaq News on 12 November, Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) has released the following names of the five Christians elected out of 19 candidates running for the November parliamentary election (*):
- Sami Oshana (Duhok) — 22,836 votes (with KDP support)
- Atheer / Athir Ibrahim (Duhok) — 22,056 votes
- Kaldo Ramzi (Erbil) — 18,472 votes (with KDP support)
- Imad / Emad Youkhanna (Kirkuk) — 17,602 votes (with KDP support)
- Hiba Gerges (Erbil) — 13,581 votes
Among the 19 Christian candidates, the local distribution looked as follows: Kirkuk (7), Erbil (4), Duhok (4), Baghdad (2) and Nineveh (2). Quite a number of them were independent candidates.
Four out of the five elected Christians were competing in governorates of Kurdistan and one in Kirkuk, mainly populated by Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens. No Christian candidate was elected in the governorates of Baghdad and Niniveh.
Obviously, the election of the Christian candidates was again vulnerable to political manipulations and hijacking of the minorities’ voters by larger political parties as the votes can be cast by all Iraqi voters and not only by the members of the Christian community (Chaldean/Syriac/Assyrian). This is always a big concern as this system risks turning “Christian representation” into a tool for he agendas of major non-Christian parties, rather than genuinely empowering Christian communities.
Big non-Christian parties (like the Kurdish Democratic Party) are known to back Christian-quota candidates. For Christian communities, winning seats is only part of the battle — making sure those seats reflect real community interests and not just political patronage.
Christian political leaders are pushing for serious reform to ensure their quota is not just a token but a genuine voice — for example, by making the quota votes “in-community” or re-organizing the system of distribution of the seats.
The controversial ‘Christian’ Babylon Movement of Rayan al-Kildani
In the previous parliamentary elections, Rayan al-Kildani, the head of the Babylon Movement, usurped the political representation of the Iraqi Christians by defaming the Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, the historical and legitimate representative of the Christian community, and by manipulating the Iraqi national election system with the assistance of Shia political activists.
This time, he lost all his leverages and the call of Cardinal Sako is surely not unrelated to his electoral defeat.
Rayan al-Kildani is known to be the commander of the paramilitary Babylon Brigades, a so-called ‘Christian’ militia, that was formed as part of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) also known under the names of People’s Mobilization Committee (PMC) and Popular Mobilization Units (PMU).
The PMF is an Iraqi state-sponsored umbrella organization composed of approximately 67 different armed factions. According to various sources, the number of their fighters ranges from 60,000 to 120,000. They are mostly Shia Muslims, including Khomeinist organizations as well as some Sunni Muslim, Christian and Yezidi groups. The PMF is at odds with Ali al-Husayni al-Sistani, the leader of Iraq’s Shias.
On 18 July 2019, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the leader of the Babylon Brigades, Rayan Al-Kaldani, for alleged human rights violations.
About the Christian political parties
The Beth Nahrain Patriotic Union showed deep mistrust about how the quota system is working and boycotted the election. Their position was that some Christian quota seats are effectively controlled by powerful non-Christian parties (Kurdish and Shia) which back their “own” Christian candidates, who are not genuine Christian-community representatives.
The Christian Alliance Iraq was the main coordinated effort for Christians going into the election. By unifying many of the smaller Christian parties, they were aiming to increase their political leverage. However, their original fragmentation highlights their deep divisions along the lines of their religious identities.
The Alliance included e.g. the Chaldean Democratic Party, the Chaldean National Congress, the Syriac Assembly Movement, the Armenian Association, the Iraqi Chaldean League Global Organization and the Shlama Movement.
(*) Earlier preliminary lists and community outlets named two different winners for the Christian seats in Bagdad and Nineveh (Evan / Aswan) and then blamed the Babylon Movement for capturing those seats, but the IHEC final list (Sami, Atheer, Kaldo, Imad, Hiba) is the authoritative result and some of the alignment claims in preliminary reports did not survive to the final certification.
Photo: Iraqi Parliament (Wikimedia)
