The institutional cascade

How capturing each pillar of the Iraqi state unlocked the next, building a chain of leverage from the speaker's podium to the premiership

1

Contested and won

Speaker of parliament

Halbousi's bloc won the speakership. Barzani's KDP did not back their candidate and instead supported a rival. The speaker controls what goes on the parliamentary agenda and when sessions are called.

Barzani-backed rival received 60+ votes but lost
2

Contested and won

First deputy speaker

Sadiqun, the political wing of Khazali's Asaib Ahl al-Haq, won the first deputy speakership. Both Barzani and Maliki backed a rival candidate, and both lost. Together with the speaker, these two offices control the procedural levers of parliament.

Barzani-Maliki-backed rival received nearly 100 votes but lost
↪Holding both the speakership and first deputy gave the bloc the procedural power to schedule sessions and control the parliamentary agenda
3

Enabled by steps 1 and 2

Presidential election placed on the agenda

Having lost the speaker and first deputy contests from inside the chamber, Maliki and Barzani escalated to boycott for the presidential vote. The speaker and first deputy pushed the session onto the agenda regardless. Without these offices in the bloc's hands, the session could not have been scheduled.

↪Smaller anti-session groupings defected from the boycott camp once they saw the session would proceed, further weakening the Maliki-Barzani position
4

April 2026

President elected despite the boycott

The bloc assembled the two-thirds quorum (220+ MPs) and elected Nizar Amedi of the PUK as president, clearing the harder constitutional threshold even without Maliki and Barzani present.

↪Under the Iraqi constitution, it is the president who tasks a candidate with forming the government. Controlling the presidency means controlling who gets the first mandate to become prime minister

Next

President tasks Sudani as prime minister

The premiership requires only a simple majority (50%+1). The bloc already holds the numbers. Having cleared the harder bar, the easier one follows. The institutional chain completes.

The pattern across these contests is consistent. For the speakership, Barzani backed a rival and lost. For the first deputy, both Barzani and Maliki backed a rival and lost. Having failed to block the bloc from inside the chamber, they escalated to boycotting the presidential session entirely, and still could not prevent the quorum from assembling. At each stage the bloc proved it could impose outcomes regardless, and each institutional capture gave it the procedural leverage to force the next.