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Pulse

MENA politics is fluid. Parties merge, split, reform; leaders are elected, dismissed, or killed; regimes fall. The party and politician pages capture the dataset as it stands now; Pulse captures the movement — what just happened, what's under way, what's rumored but not yet formal. Each event carries a confidence rating and the same per-field source citations as every other Tayyar entity.

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Recent confirmed events

Events with a confirmed date in the last 12 months. Most-recent first.

Confirmed Election scheduled Iraq November 11, 2025

Iraqi parliamentary election scheduled for November 2025

Iraq's next parliamentary election is scheduled for 2025-11-11. The Sadrist Movement (Sairoon) has not announced whether it will end its 2022 political withdrawal and contest seats.

Earlier

Older confirmed events on file. The lens reaches back to political shifts that still shape today's positions.

Reported Coalition formed Iraq April 2025

Iraq prepares for late-2025 elections under Sudani

Iraq's parliamentary elections scheduled for November 2025 set the stage for either a renewal of Sudani's Coordination Framework government or a return of Sadrist influence after Muqtada al-Sadr's 2022 withdrawal. The Council of Representatives passed an electoral law revision in spring 2025 modifying district boundaries; opposition parties accused the changes of favoring Coordination Framework members.
Confirmed Other Iraq November 14, 2023

Federal court ousts Halbousi as parliament speaker

On 14 November 2023 Iraq's Federal Supreme Court abruptly terminated Mohammed al-Halbousi's membership in parliament — and thus his speakership — over a forgery allegation brought by a rival Sunni MP, a final and unappealable ruling that removed the country's top Sunni official and sparked uproar in Sunni provinces. He was later acquitted of the forgery charge in 2025 but could not reclaim the post.
Confirmed Coalition formed Iraq October 27, 2022

Iraq: Sudani forms government after the longest deadlock in Iraqi history

Iraq spent over a year without a sitting government after the October 2021 elections — through Sadrist withdrawal from parliament, mass resignations of Sadrist MPs, deadly Green Zone clashes in August 2022, and a constitutional impasse over who could form a cabinet. Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, a Coordination Framework nominee, finally took office, ending the deadlock but consolidating power in the Iran-aligned bloc Muqtada al-Sadr had walked out to oppose.
Confirmed Leader changed Iraq October 13, 2022

Parliament elects Abdul Latif Rashid president of Iraq

On 13 October 2022 Iraq's parliament elected the veteran Kurdish engineer Abdul Latif Rashid president with more than 162 votes, defeating incumbent Barham Salih — breaking the year-long post-election deadlock. Rashid (backed by the KDP) immediately named Mohammed Shia al-Sudani prime minister-designate, clearing the way for a new government even as rockets fell on Baghdad.
Confirmed Other Iraq June 13, 2022

Sadr orders all 73 of his MPs to resign from parliament

After eight months of deadlock in which he could not form a government, on 12–13 June 2022 Muqtada al-Sadr ordered all 73 Sadrist MPs to resign en masse from parliament. The seats passed to runners-up, mostly from the rival Coordination Framework, which then formed the Sudani government. The walkout — followed by deadly clashes in the Green Zone in August 2022 — was a dramatic instance of withdrawing from institutions rather than governing through them.
Confirmed Election held Iraq October 10, 2021

Sadrist bloc wins 73 seats — the single largest — in the 2021 election

In the 10 October 2021 early election (called after the 2019 Tishreen protests), the Sadrist movement won 73 of 329 seats, its best-ever result and the largest single bloc. Sadr sought to form a majority "national" government with Sunni and Kurdish partners, breaking the post-2003 consensus model, but was blocked by the rival pro-Iran Coordination Framework through the courts and a quorum requirement.
Confirmed Other Iraq October 1, 2019

Tishreen protest movement begins

Cross-sectarian protests across Baghdad and the Shia south demanding the resignation of the post-2003 political class. PM Adel Abdul Mahdi resigns by December; protests continue through 2020 with hundreds killed in security-force violence.
Confirmed Leader changed Iraq June 2019

Barzani family consolidates KRG: Nechirvan president, Masrour PM

After Masoud Barzani's post-referendum resignation, the KDP installed his nephew Nechirvan Barzani as President of the Kurdistan Region (taking office June 2019) and his son Masrour Barzani as prime minister (sworn in July 2019), cementing the family's grip on both top offices. The arrangement steered the KRG through chronic budget and oil-export disputes with Baghdad.
Confirmed Other Iraq September 15, 2018

Halbousi becomes Iraq's leading Sunni as parliament speaker

In September 2018 Mohammed al-Halbousi, a former Anbar governor, was elected Speaker of Iraq's Council of Representatives, becoming at 37 the youngest holder of the post and the foremost Sunni officeholder in the post-2003 confessional order. His Taqaddum (Progress) party went on to win 37 seats in the 2021 election, the largest Sunni bloc.
Confirmed Election held Iraq May 12, 2018

Al-Hikma wins 19 seats in its first election and enters government

Contesting the 12 May 2018 parliamentary election as a new party, al-Hikma won 19 seats while its former parent ISCI collapsed to three. Al-Hikma joined the Islah (Reform) alliance and the government of Adel Abdul-Mahdi, giving Ammar al-Hakim a place among the kingmakers of post-2018 Shia politics before the movement moved toward opposition in 2019–2020.
Confirmed Election held Iraq May 12, 2018

Sadr's Sairoon alliance wins the most seats in Iraq's 2018 election

In the 12 May 2018 parliamentary election, Muqtada al-Sadr's cross-ideological Sairoon ("On the Move") alliance — pairing the Sadrist movement with the Iraqi Communist Party and secular activists on an anti-corruption, anti-Iran, Iraqi-nationalist platform — finished first with 54 of 329 seats. Sadr, who did not run himself, became the chief kingmaker in forming the Adel Abdul-Mahdi government.
Confirmed Election held Iraq September 25, 2017

Kurdish independence referendum

Iraqi Kurdistan votes 92.7% in favour of independence. Baghdad rejects the result; within weeks, federal forces retake Kirkuk and most disputed territories, ending KRG's post-2003 territorial expansion.
Confirmed Other Iraq September 25, 2017

KRG independence referendum backfires, costing Kurdistan Kirkuk

On 25 September 2017 the Kurdistan Regional Government held an independence referendum in which over 93% voted to secede. Within the ruling KDP, security chief Masrour Barzani backed the vote while then-PM Nechirvan Barzani and the politburo were wary. Baghdad responded with a military push that retook Kirkuk and ~40% of KRG-held territory, and President Masoud Barzani resigned — a major miscalculation that set back Kurdish self-rule.
Confirmed Party formed Iraq July 2017

Ammar al-Hakim leaves ISCI to found the National Wisdom Movement (al-Hikma)

In July 2017 Ammar al-Hakim announced he was leaving the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), which he had led since 2009, to found a new "national" movement, the National Wisdom Movement (Tayyar al-Hikma al-Watani). All but five of the 29 MPs of ISCI's Citizen Alliance followed him, leaving ISCI with a rump; al-Hikma branded itself as civic, Iraqi-nationalist and distanced from the pro-Iran "old guard."
Confirmed Other Iraq July 10, 2017

Mosul liberated from ISIS

Iraqi forces backed by the US-led coalition retook Mosul on 2017-07-10 after a nine-month battle, ending three years of ISIS control over Iraq's second-largest city. The defeat marked the effective end of the ISIS caliphate's territorial control.
Confirmed Other Iraq June 10, 2014

Mosul falls to ISIS

Iraqi army collapses in Mosul; ISIS captures Iraq's second-largest city in two days, looting central bank cash and US-supplied military equipment. Ten days later, al-Baghdadi declares the caliphate from al-Nuri Mosque.
Confirmed Election held Iraq March 7, 2010

Iraqi 2010 election: Allawi wins, Maliki forms government

The 2010 Iraqi parliamentary election ended with Iyad Allawi's Iraqiya bloc narrowly winning the most seats. However, Maliki's State of Law Coalition outmaneuvered Allawi over 9 months to form the government — a moment widely seen as setting Iraq on the sectarian path that enabled ISIS's 2014 rise.
Confirmed Leader killed Iraq December 30, 2006

Saddam executed after the Dujail trial

Captured by US forces in December 2003, Saddam Hussein was tried by the Iraqi Special Tribunal for the 1982 Dujail massacre of 148 Shia villagers and executed by hanging on 30 December 2006. The rushed, sectarian-tinged execution — filmed and leaked — closed the Ba'athist era but deepened Sunni–Shia grievances in the new Iraq.
Confirmed Party dissolved Iraq May 16, 2003

Ba'ath Party banned by CPA Order 1 (de-Ba'athification)

On 16 May 2003 the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority under Paul Bremer issued Order Number 1, banning the Ba'ath Party in all forms and purging its senior members from public employment. Combined with Order 2 dissolving the army a week later, de-Ba'athification removed Iraq's entire administrative top tier and is widely blamed for fueling the post-2003 insurgency.
Confirmed Other Iraq August 2, 1990

Saddam invades Kuwait, triggering the Gulf War

On 2 August 1990 Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion and annexation of Kuwait, claiming it as Iraq's 19th province. A US-led coalition expelled Iraqi forces in the 1991 Gulf War, and the subsequent UN sanctions regime devastated Iraqi society for over a decade. The miscalculation isolated Iraq and set in motion the confrontation that ended in the 2003 US invasion.
Confirmed Other Iraq March 16, 1988

Ba'athist regime carries out the Anfal genocide and Halabja gas attack

During the 1988 Anfal campaign the Ba'athist government under Saddam Hussein killed an estimated 50,000–100,000 Kurds and razed thousands of villages; on 16 March 1988 it gassed the town of Halabja, killing some 5,000 civilians. Iraqi and other courts later recognized Anfal as genocide — among the starkest cases of a ruling party's violent conduct in the dataset.
Confirmed Other Iraq July 17, 1968

Ba'ath Party seizes power in the 17 July 1968 coup

On 17 July 1968 the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party took power in Iraq through a coup, installing Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr as president with Saddam Hussein as the regime's enforcer and eventual president (from 1979). The party then ran Iraq as a one-party state for 35 years.

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Pulse is curated. If you spot a MENA political event that should be here — a party formation, leadership transition, election result, designation change — open an issue against the repo with citation links. Events are tracked the same way as parties and politicians: per-field source citations, verification status, last-reviewed-by.