The selection of Haybat al-Halbousi as Speaker of Parliament was not a meaningful political event. Rather, it was a stark reminder of the profound political illiteracy that has governed Iraq since 2003. Al-Halbousi did not emerge as a statesman or a visionary figure with expertise. He arrived as a minor clause in a bargain of mutual interests among sectarian parties that divide the state’s institutions as if they were spoils of war. Iraqis thus find themselves facing a familiar situation once again: different faces, but the same structural decay — a state run by quotas, not institutions.

Al-Halbousi, a relative of former Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi, was not presented to the Iraqi people as a public figure with a programme or project. Instead, he was introduced as a ‘sectarian counterpart’, a piece needed to complete the power-balancing mosaic engineered by the ruling parties. His rise reflects not the will of voters, but that of a system which does not permit the emergence of statesmen, but rather sectarian functionaries who perform their allotted role before exiting the stage.

The clearest example of this mindset came when al-Halbousi, as head of the Oil and Gas Committee, proposed that the government sell fuel coupons to citizens........

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