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Iraqi Christians are set to boycott Tuesday’s elections saying that their seats have been hijacked. For immediate release Christian parties are boycotting Iraq’s parliamentary elections on Tuesday 11th November warning that the small number of seats reserved for Christians are being hijacked. A minority in Iraq, Christians are only allocated five seats in parliament under the country’s quota system – and these have been “snatched” from them by a party called The Babylon Movement, a Chaldean Catholic political party which claims to represent Iraq’s diminishing Christian community. Despite claiming to represent Iraq’s Christian community, the Babylon Movement, - led by US-sanctioned human rights absuser, Rayan al-Kildani, - is widely rejected by Christians. The party has an armed wing known as Babylon Brigade, which, according to the Washington Institute for the Near East Policy, is an Iranian-backed Shia militia. Sami*, a Christian legal expert from Iraq, said: “As Christians, we have a big problem. The quota has been snatched from us. “In Mosul there is no competition within Christian parties because the candidates belong to the same party - to the Babylon Movement. “The outcome is already settled,” said Sami. “Even if 1,000 Christians vote, the party will bring another 3,000 votes from non-Christians and win. So non-Christians decide for Christians when it comes to their representatives. It’s misery for us. “The majority are always controlling the quota seats. The current representatives of Christians have never defended any affair related to authentic Christian voices.” Across the country, candidates are vying for 329 seats in parliament. Among the 329 seats nine are designated for the minorities as follows: five for Christians and one each for Yezidis, Shabaks, Mandaeans and Feyli Kurds. The quota system aims to ensure fair representation for groups that might otherwise be marginalised or underrepresented in elections. However, this system has a significant loophole where the quota seats are open to all voters, not just Christians, allowing non-Christian groups to contest and win them. According to the Washington Institute, The Babylon Movement won four of the five parliamentary seats reserved for Christians in the 2021 elections. A report on the Institute’s website by Yaqoub Beth-Addai, an Iraqi expert on militias in the Nineveh Plains and Mosul, states: “Kildani's success was largely due to votes from non-Christian constituents, facilitated by his ties to Shia militias and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). This influx of non-Christian votes effectively marginalised authentic Christian voices in the political arena and is set to happen once again.” The boycott follows a similar protest in 2024, when Christian parties withdrew from the elections in Kurdistan Region Parliament. The decision came after an Iraqi Federal Supreme Court ruling, which removed the five Christian quota seats from the Kurdistan Region Parliament in 2024, later restoring only three. This latest boycott of parliamentary elections is a further display of the disenfranchisement Christians are experiencing over their community being genuinely represented in Iraq’s political arena. On top of the issue of representation, many Christians have given up going to the polling stations in any elections, convinced that the results are pre-determined. Sami said: “We’ve had the same faces in authority for the past 15 years. They haven’t offered any positive change for Christians in the past and there is no reason to believe they will now." Fadi*, a Christian in his 40s, feels the upcoming elections are just a facade and pull the wool over the eyes over the international community. “The outcome of the current elections is already known,” he said. “The elections are only symbolic for the international community to show that it’s a democratic process. “After every election it is clear to us that the candidates and winners are agreed upon earlier.” Fadi added: “Most of the current representatives of Christians don’t represent us and the very few who are left don’t have any authority to make any change. “If the elections are corrupted and get the international community's approval, this will again lead to another four years of theft, commissions and corruption.” The Christian population in Iraq has seen a huge decrease in the past two and half decades from about 1.5m to under 200,000 due to different waves of persecution, marginalisation and harassment. Iraq is ranked at number 17 of Open Doors’ World Watch List, an index released annually of the 50 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution. ENDS Notes for editors: In Iraq the parliamentary elections are taking place on November 11, 2025 including the autonomous Kurdistan Region. *Pseudonyms used for security reasons
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