Iraq is heading to the polls amid deep divisions among its Shia political elite and shifting regional power dynamics. Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani is caught between Iran, the US, and the Gulf, as the powerful Sadrist movement boycotts the election, reshaping turnout and coalition-building.
US House Speaker Mike Johnson said the House of Representatives will vote “as soon as possible” after a Senate vote on Sunday opened the door to the federal government reopening.
Johnson told reporters that he will give his House colleagues 36 hours’ notice pending a final vote from the Senate and added that members should start returning to Washington “right now”.
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“We applaud seven Senate Democrats and one independent senator who did the right thing,” Johnson said of the 60-40 vote on Sunday night that could be the first step to the end of the longest government shutdown in United States history.
Among the Democrats who voted with their Republican counterparts are Senators Dick Durbin of Illinois, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Tim Kaine of Virginia, and Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen from New Hampshire. They joined Angus King, an independent senator from Maine, as well as two other Democrats who had already defected from other Democrats: Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania.
The legislation provides funding to reopen the government and finance programmes including US Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food aid. It also ensures back pay for furloughed federal workers whose fate had been left in doubt.
Included is funding to keep much of the federal government running for the next couple of months, to January 30, with a stopgap measure. The legislation largely funds government operations at their current rates.
But notably lacking is any clear resolution to expiring healthcare subsidies that Democrats have been fighting for as millions of Americans stare down rising insurance premiums. That debate was pushed off for a vote next month, weeks before the subsidies are set to expire, but some experts are concerned that Democrats will not deliver.
“Democrats capitulating in a fight to lower costs will reverse all the brand gains they have made over the last few months,” Lindsay Owens, executive director of the economic think tank the Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera. “If they can’t do this, voters will be even more cynical. Two parties talk about affordability, but neither will fight to deliver it.”
If healthcare subsidies do expire, average premium costs would more than double for Americans who get their insurance through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis from September.
Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries vowed to continue to push to extend ACA subsidies.
“This is not a partisan fight for us. This is a patriotic fight,” Jeffries told reporters at a press conference.
He pointed out that more registered Republicans rely on the tax credits than registered Democrats or those who are unaffiliated with either major political party.
“In all likelihood, part of this deal is that the Democrats are going to be able to put forward the bill themselves in December for a vote so they will control the narrative of the bill and the vote,” Republican strategist Adolfo Franco told Al Jazeera.
Franco also added that because there are Republicans in favour of extending the subsidies, it is likely to pass.
But despite progress towards reopening the government, havoc is still hitting the nation’s airports.
Airlines on Monday cancelled more than 1,000 US flights for a fourth consecutive day as government flight cuts and air traffic staffing absences continue creating issues with aviation.
“The problem we have with air travel is that our air traffic controllers are overworked and unpaid and many of them have called in sick. That’s a very stressful job and even more stressful exponentially when they’re having trouble providing for their families,” Speaker Johnson told reporters on Monday.
US President Donald Trump is pressuring air traffic controllers to return to work.
On Monday, Trump said he would dock pay for air traffic controllers who do not return and would concurrently give a $10,000 bonus to those who stayed on the job through the shutdown.
On Wall Street, markets are trending high on news that the government shutdown may be coming to a close. As of 11am in New York (16:00 GMT) the Nasdaq is up 1.7 percent, S&P 500 is up 0.8 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, on the other hand, remains relatively flat, and is up by only 0.04 percent.
At least two people including a child have been killed in an Israeli drone strike east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, according to Al Jazeera reporters in the besieged Palestinian territory.
Hamas condemned Israel’s “daily and continuous violations” since a truce came into effect last month, accusing it of maintaining a campaign of bombardments and demolitions across the besieged enclave.
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In a statement published on Telegram on Monday, the group said Israeli attacks had killed 271 people, over 90 percent of them civilians, and wounded 622 more since the ceasefire took effect on October 10.
The Israeli military said the Palestinians killed on Monday posed “an immediate threat” to its forces.
Israeli forces have also been systematically destroying homes inside the so-called “yellow line”, a temporary withdrawal boundary agreed in the ceasefire.
Al Jazeera’s correspondents on the ground have said demolition operations in eastern Khan Younis have intensified. “Every two-storey building or house is being targeted,” said Hamdan Radwan, mayor of Bani Suheila, the largest municipality in the area.
Al Jazeera correspondents have confirmed Israeli forces are blowing up residential blocks in central Gaza as well. Satellite images and field footage show large swathes of neighbourhoods reduced to rubble.
Israel also continues to restrict aid deliveries to Gaza, violating one of the key terms of the ceasefire. Hamas said Israel had refused to allow at least 600 aid trucks daily, including 50 carrying fuel, despite the agreement.
On Sunday, only 270 trucks entered Gaza through the Karem Abu Salem (known in Israel as Kerem Shalom) and al-Karara (Kissufuim) crossings.
According to Al Jazeera’s reporters, the deliveries included 126 trucks of humanitarian aid, 127 carrying commercial goods, 10 with fuel and seven transporting cooking gas.
While aid flow has increased since the ceasefire began, Palestinians across Gaza continue to suffer from extreme shortages of food, medicine, clean water and essential goods.
Many remain homeless, with entire neighbourhoods destroyed by nearly two years of relentless Israeli bombardment.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) says between 500 and 600 trucks of supplies are needed daily to meet Gaza’s most basic needs. But Israel’s restrictions have left the agency struggling to deliver aid.
John Whyte, UNRWA’s senior deputy director for Gaza operations, told Irish news outlet The Journal that Israel has barred the agency’s vehicles from entering altogether.
“They just won’t let anything that’s owned by UNRWA go in,” Whyte said. “They’re requiring us to hand our supplies to other agencies and remove the UNRWA logo before they can cross. It’s creating enormous logistical delays.”
Israel outlawed UNRWA last year, with the ban taking effect in January, cutting off a critical lifeline for Gaza’s displaced population.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary noted that Palestinians were promised 600 trucks of aid daily as part of the ceasefire. “We’ve been monitoring the situation, and the majority of trucks entering are non-essential commercial ones,” she said. “According to the UN and Reuters, only around 200 trucks of humanitarian aid are entering each day.”
Khoudary added that in northern Gaza, where many displaced families are returning, the UN has reported no direct aid entry for 75 days. “People told us they go to bed hungry. They queue for hours for water and can’t afford meat or eggs,” she said.
As part of the ceasefire’s body exchange arrangement, Israel on Monday handed over the remains of 15 Palestinians to authorities in Gaza. A medical source told Wafa news agency that the Red Cross transferred the bodies to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
It was the 12th such exchange under the deal, bringing the total number of bodies returned to 315. Only 89 have been identified so far due to decomposition and a lack of proper equipment in Gaza. Wafa reported that most of the recovered bodies showed signs of torture.
Hamas said it had fulfilled its obligations under the agreement, handing over 20 living captives within 72 hours “despite extremely difficult field conditions”. It said it had retrieved 24 of 28 bodies and shared coordinates for others located in areas under Israeli control.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that al-Kheir Hospital in Khan Younis has resumed operations after months of closure due to Israeli attacks. The WHO said it helped rehabilitate the facility by restoring power, sanitation and water systems, and providing medical equipment.
On Tuesday, Iraqis from across the country will head to the polls to elect a new parliament.
Analysts and observers believe the voter turnout will indicate whether Iraqis have any confidence left in the current political system to provide security and improve basic services.
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Both issues have plagued Iraqis since the United States invaded in 2003 to topple then-President Saddam Hussein, an invasion that ruptured Iraq’s social fabric and prompted a rebellion against the US occupation.
What’s more, the occupation triggered fighting between Shia and Sunni militias from 2006 to 2008 and between Iraqi government forces and ISIL (ISIS) from 2013 to 2017.
Since the first elected government in 2005, Iraqis have grown disillusioned with their governments’ failure to improve the lives of citizens and the predominance of unchanging faces heading militarised parties. Yet many will still head to the polls.
Here’s all you need to know about the parliamentary elections:
Well, voters will select 329 members of parliament.
Of this number, at least 25 percent – 83 seats – will go to women.
Early voting for Iraq’s security personnel and its 26,000 displaced people took place on Sunday.
For the rest of the population, polls will open at 7am (04:00 GMT) on Tuesday and close at 6pm (15:00 GMT).
They will cast their ballots at polling stations across 18 of Iraq’s 19 provinces. The recently created province of Halabja will be included with Sulaimaniya in the vote.
There are 7,744 candidates running, most affiliated with sectarian political parties and blocs – a direct outcome of the “muhasasa” (quota) system ushered in after the US invasion.
Muhasasa was an attempt to bring about proportional representation among Iraq’s diverse ethnic and religious communities.
According to the system, the speaker of parliament will always be a Sunni, the prime minister a Shia and the president a Kurd.
This election will see a powerful Shia bloc headed by former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki run in the elections as well as a coalition headed by the current leader, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.
The latter is aiming to secure a second term as prime minister, yet analysts believe his chances are slim due to deep divisions within the Shia Coordination Framework (SCF), which is the principal Shia political bloc.
The SCF was formed in 2021 and appointed al-Sudani as prime minister in 2022.
Meanwhile, the main Sunni political force running in the elections is the Taqaddum (Progress) Party, headed by parliamentary Speaker Mohamed al-Halbousi. His party’s supporters mainly hail from Sunni heartlands in the west and north of the country.
The major Kurdish parties competing in the elections are the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which is trying to secure larger shares of oil reserves to boost the budget in the semiautonomous Kurdish region of Iraq.
The rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which favours closer relations with the government in Baghdad, will also be competing for seats and influence.
Powerful Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has urged his followers to boycott the elections.
Al-Sadr commands a large following in southern and central Iraq, which he can easily mobilise onto the streets, according to analysts.
Al Jazeera previously reported that al-Sadr boycotted the elections to protest the muhasasa system, which he reportedly wants to replace with a government formed by the blocs that win a majority in elections.
Critics fear that abandoning proportional representation along sectarian lines could eventually pave the way for a new dictatorship.
Nevertheless, the refusal of Sadrists to participate in the elections could damage the legitimacy of the next government, Tamer Badawi, an Iraq expert with the Royal United Services Institute, told the Atlantic Council.
He added that any crisis of confidence in the next government could hurt its ability to provide adequate services.
Probably not as many as in previous elections.
Only 21.4 million out of a total of 32 million eligible voters have signed up from 19 provinces to partake in the elections, down from four years ago when 24 million people registered.
Many observers and analysts believe voter turnout on Tuesday could dip below 2021’s 41 percent, the lowest turnout on record.
The lack of participation in Iraq’s elections has been attributed to growing disenfranchisement among Iraqi youth over the muhasasa system, which many perceive as enabling corruption and injustice.
Al-Sudani is pursuing a second term as prime minister, and his bloc is positioned to win the most seats, yet he may still fail at securing the backing of major Shia parties to retain his post.
Al-Sudani’s first term saw him under increasing US pressure to crack down on the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), or Hashd al-Shaabi, a quasi-state paramilitary group that fought and defeated ISIL in 2017 and that the US views as aligned with Iran, which has been influential in Iraq since the US invasion.
Al-Sudani has promised to integrate PMF units into the government and fully submit them to the chain of command of the Iraqi army and other conventional security forces.
This has been an increasingly delicate task since PMF groups have accrued their own power by entrenching themselves in the economy and creating political parties prominent in the SCF, power that could enable them to win significant seats and compete for major posts in the next government.
Mourners at Gaza’s Nasser Hospital received the bodies of two Palestinians killed in an Israeli strike while they were trying to reach their home east of Khan Younis. The Israeli army says the two “posed an immediate threat.” One of the dead reportedly is a child.
Indonesia’s former President Muhammad Soeharto, whose three-decade rule was marred by accusations of mass human rights violations, was posthumously named a “national hero” on Monday, causing backlash.
The title was conferred in a ceremony presided over by President Prabowo Subianto, a former military general and Soeharto’s former son-in-law, despite protests by pro-democracy activists and the families of those affected by the former leader’s iron-fisted rule.
Backed by the United States during the Cold War, Soeharto used the military to dominate civilian affairs and crush dissent.
He was also accused of massive corruption and nepotism benefiting his family and cronies, although no charge was proven and he never went on trial due to his failing health.
So who was Soeharto, who ruled Indonesia for 32 years? And what’s behind President Prabowo’s decision to honour the late general?
Soeharto, whose name is also spelled Suharto, was Indonesia’s second president. He was a military officer who became president in 1967 after seizing power from the country’s first president and independence leader, Sukarno.
He launched a brutal crackdown to purge alleged communists, killing more than half a million Indonesians. The crackdown came after Soeharto accused the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) of a coup attempt following the kidnapping and killing of six military officers in 1965.
It has never been officially investigated. Soeharto was the key military officer during that time, although his involvement was never proven.
Under his leadership, Indonesia invaded and occupied East Timor in 1975, killing hundreds of thousands of people. Soeharto had the support of the West, particularly Washington, for his brutal actions in Indonesia and East Timor.
The former leader and his family were also suspected of corrupt practices during his rule. The charges remain unproven. Attempts to try Soeharto for graft were first made in 2000, but he failed to appear in court and was later declared too ill to stand trial.
Soeharto’s three-decade rule was marked by rapid economic growth and political stability, but also involved severe restrictions on human rights and free speech, and the military’s violent crackdowns on the opposition.
He was forced out of office in 1998 following deadly student protests in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. He issued an apology to the nation after his ouster, but did not specifically mention the human rights abuses and corruption that characterised his rule.
Soeharto came from a humble background. He joined the Dutch colonial army at 19 as a corporal and afterwards fought with Indonesian guerrillas against the Dutch colonial forces. Indonesia gained independence from the Netherlands in 1945.
Soeharto was one of the 10 people recognised by Prabowo during a televised ceremony that took place at the presidential palace in Jakarta to commemorate the annual National Hero Day.
Every year, the title of national hero is awarded to Indonesians who have contributed significantly to the Southeast Asian archipelago’s development.
“A prominent figure from Central Java province, a hero of the struggle for independence, General Soeharto stood out since the independence era,” an announcer said as Prabowo handed the award to Soeharto’s daughter and son.
Soeharto joins a list of more than 200 people that includes the first democratically elected president, Sukarno, as well as prominent women’s rights advocates, Islamic scholars and independence activists.
Former President Abdurrahman Wahid and labour activist Marsinah, who was kidnapped and murdered under Soeharto, are also among this year’s candidates to become national heroes.
Soeharto’s daughter, Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, and son, Bambang Trihatmodjo, were among the attendees at Monday’s ceremony.
“Please remember what my father had done, from when he was young, until he was old, all his fights for this country and the Indonesian people,” Siti told reporters after the ceremony.
Yes.
Ahead of the National Hero Day ceremony, activists and civil society members rallied outside the presidential palace to protest proposals to grant Soeharto the national hero title. They raised an alarm about historical revisionism in Indonesia.
Some carried posters saying: “Stop the Whitewashing of the General of Butchery” and “Thousands Died But The Country Chose to Forget”.
The Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS), a local rights group, said designating Soeharto a national hero was immoral and helped to normalise impunity.
“[Soeharto], as someone suspected of being involved in human rights violations, state violence and various offences related to human rights abuses, does not deserve to be awarded the title of national hero,” KontraS coordinator Dimas Bagus Arya told AFP.
Last week, around 500 civil society members, activists and academics published a letter sent to Prabowo requesting he not proceed with the hero designation.
The letter said awarding Soeharto the title was a betrayal of his victims and of democratic values, and constituted a dangerous distortion of history.
Several rights groups also sent a letter to Culture Minister Fadli Zon and Prabowo to oppose the plan to honour the former leader. Fadli said proposing national hero candidates included public input.
“We have conducted research,” he told reporters. “All of them have met the requirements.”
State Secretary Prasetyo Hadi also defended the government’s decision.
“It is part of how we honour our predecessors, especially our leaders, who undoubtedly have made extraordinary contributions to the nation and the country,” he told reporters.
Prabowo is closely associated with Soeharto and was an ally of the former president. Prabowo is a former army general who served as the special forces commander during Soeharto’s rule.
The current Indonesian president was married to Soeharto’s daughter Siti Hediati Hariyadi. The couple divorced after 15 years of marriage, and she is now a parliamentarian.
Prabowo has been accused of being involved in military crimes in East Timor under Soeharto in 1983. East Timor only became independent after Soeharto stepped down.
Soeharto’s party, Golkar, remains a major player in Indonesian politics and backs Prabowo. Golkar holds key ministries in the Indonesian cabinet.
Prabowo rose to power following an election last year, and has been accused by his critics of expanding the role of the military in civilian domains.
In response to outcry over the plan to include Soeharto, Prabowo’s office had insisted he has the right to bestow the title upon whomever he chooses.
Yes.
Soeharto was a staunch anti-communist, and the US played a role in shoring him up.
Even before Soeharto rose to power, the US sought to weaken and depose Sukarno, who was accused of being sympathetic to communists.
In 2017, diplomatic cables declassified by the US National Security Archive and the National Declassification Center showed that Washington had intimate knowledge about the 1965 purge of alleged communists in Indonesia.