Iraq is a transitional democracy with its first general election held in January 2005 and a permanent constitution ratified in October 2005.

After U.S.-led invasion ousted long-time dictator Saddam Hussein in April 2003, Iraq was governed by a Coalition Provincial Authority run by the United States. The CPA transferred power to the Iraqi Interim Government on June 28, 2004, and Iraq became a sovereign country. Voters chose an interim National Assembly in January 2005 that elected an interim president and drafted a constitution that was ratified by Iraqis on Oct. 15, 2005.

Executive
The executive branch includes the president, two vice presidents, prime    more... Executive
The executive branch includes the president, two vice presidents, prime minister and cabinet. The president of Iraq holds a largely ceremonial role and is elected by a two-thirds majority of the parliament. Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani served as the interim president and was re-elected to another four-year term in the permanent government in April 2006. The president and the two vice presidents make up the Presidency Council.

The party with a majority in the parliament selects the prime minister who, as the head of the government, is responsible for the general policy of the nation and serves as the chief of the armed forces. The prime minister appoints a cabinet that must be approved by an absolute majority of the parliament. Nouri al-Maliki, a member of the Shiite Dawa Party, became the first prime minister in April 2006, and after hard-fought negotiations over the interior, national security and defense posts, the parliament approved his full cabinet in June 2006. The cabinet includes 37 ministers from the government's major parties who are responsible for overseeing national security agencies, dispensing the resources and wealth of the country, negotiating treaties, and proposing laws and budgets.

Legislative
Iraq's first full-term parliament, called the Council of Representatives, or Mejlis Watani, was elected Dec. 15, 2005, to a four-year term and is responsible for making the laws of the country. Of the 275-member council, 230 seats are allocated to Iraq's 18 electoral districts in proportion to the number of registered voters. The remaining 45 are elected nationwide, giving representation in the government to smaller parties that did not win enough votes in a single province and that have supporters spread across Iraq.

The parliament is led by a Shiite coalition called the United Iraqi Alliance and is made up of the Dawa Party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, supporters of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and smaller parties. The parliament convened for the first time under the constitution in March 2006. To honor Iraq's power-sharing structure, Mahmud Mashhadani, a Sunni, was elected president of the Council of Representatives.

The parliament proposes and passes laws, selects a president, ratifies treaties, and approves the nomination of officials, including the prime minister and the cabinet. The constitution requires that at least one-quarter of the parliament be women.

A second, smaller legislative body called the Council of Union includes representatives of the 18 regions, or provinces, and reviews bills that concern these regions.

At the regional level, a National Council for the Region serves as the legislature, the president of the region and the regional cabinet as the executive authority, and a regional court system as the judicial branch. All powers not granted exclusively to the federal government fall to the region and as written, the constitution gives the regions power over the central government in cases of dispute. The 18 governorates are divided into a total 90 districts, which are subdivided into 427 municipalities or townships nationwide.

The Kurdish Regional Government exists as a quasi autonomous region in Iraq and manages laws within the region of Kurdistan in the north.

Judicial
At the top of Iraq's judicial branch, the Supreme Judicial Council supervises the federal court system and nominates members of the Supreme Federal Court and the Federal Court of Cassation to be approved by the parliament. The Supreme Federal Court's members are judges and experts in Sharia, or Islamic law. As a body, it rules on cases involving federal laws and on the constitutionality of laws.

The Federal Court of Cassation acts as an appeals court.

Any Iraqi citizen -- male or female -- over age 18 can register to vote.    more... Any Iraqi citizen -- male or female -- over age 18 can register to vote. The Independent Electoral Commission educates voters on the election process and supervises elections, including the Out-of-Country Voting Program that permits Iraqis living abroad to vote.

Iraq held its first general elections after the fall of Saddam Hussein in January 2005 to select an interim government. Turnout was high in Shiite and Kurdish areas but low among Sunnis, who boycotted the election or opted not to vote for fear of violence near polling stations.

Sunnis participated in the December 2005 elections to select a permanent parliament, and turnout among all groups reached 79 percent.

Under Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi legal system mirrored in broad terms the    more... Under Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi legal system mirrored in broad terms the Egyptian system which was based on civil code. Judges were employees of the Ministry of Justice and acted as an extension of Saddam's government. The new Iraqi constitution separates the legal system from the executive branch to form an independent system. It establishes a system based on European civil law coupled with Islamic law that is divided into civil and criminal courts.

The interim government also created the Iraqi Special Tribunal for Crimes Against Humanity to try Saddam and other leaders of his Baath government. In November 2006, the court sentenced Saddam and two co-defendants to death by hanging for the 1982 deaths of 148 Shiites in the town of Dujail. International observers have questioned the impartiality of the trial. The human rights group Amnesty International called it "deeply flawed and unfair," arguing that politics interfered with the court's independence and that it failed to protect witnesses and lawyers, many of whom were killed during the trial.