Iraq’s elections on November 11 will test whether the country’s most stable period in recent memory can withstand the turbulence of electoral politics and protracted government formation, and remain insulated from the wider wars consuming a region in profound and perilous transformation.

Iraqi elections are rarely contests over competing policy visions or debates, domestic or foreign. Instead, they revolve around the mechanics of patronage and proximity to power: thousands of candidates vying for seats in the 329-member Council of Representatives by offering material and economic incentives to mobilise their social bases. With voter turnout consistently low, these bases – or those who still vote – become all the more decisive.

Yet behind the familiar retail politics that define elections lies an elite conversation about how to sustain Iraq’s recent stability, which has partly facilitated a period of prosperity. Across Iraq’s political spectrum – even among factions aligned with Tehran and hostile to Washington – there is broad agreement that such stability depends on maintaining the current policy of regional engagement with all neighbours and continued, if cautious, co-operation with the US.

Iraq remains the only country connected to Iran and the so-called “axis of resistance” that has not descended into significant violence. Its insulation has rested on the ruling Shiite Co-ordination Framework’s (SCF) consolidation of power and its choice to trade ideological confrontation (vis-a-vis the axis) for economic rewards through the Iraqi state.

Any ideological conflict has been bad for business. The question now is whether this election, and the fraught, often violent process of government formation that follows, will fracture that consensus, unravel Iraq’s fragile calm and draw the country once more into regional conflict.

In the past, elections have often marked periods of instability that have come at a geopolitical cost. Before the 2021 vote, Baghdad had been making significant strides in positioning itself as a regional bridge, hosting dialogue between Saudi Arabia and Iran, advancing the Baghdad Conference that brought together leaders from across the Gulf, Iran and beyond, and beginning to carve out a potential role as a regional convener.

Workers prepare voting materials for Iraq's upcoming elections at a polling station in Baghdad.