Opposition (143) Member State of the Arab League The Council of Representatives[a] is the de facto unicameral legislature of the Republic of Iraq.

The 1925 constitution called for a bicameral parliament whose lower house, the Chamber of Deputies of Iraq or Council of Representatives (Majlis an-Nuwwab) would be elected based on universal manhood suffrage.

Following controversy over the implementation of the so-called Baghdad Pact, Prime Minister Nuri Pasha as-Said called for elections the following year, in early 1954.

As-Said dissolved the assembly shortly thereafter and began to rule by decree, but opposition forced him to hold a third election within three years.

In March 2003 a governing council set up by the Coalition Provisional Authority signed an interim constitution which called for the election of a transitional National Assembly after than the end of January 2005.

After weeks of negotiations between the dominant political parties, on April 4, 2005, Sunni Arab Hajim al-Hassani was chosen as speaker; Shiite Hussain Shahristani and Kurd Aref Taifour were elected as his top deputies.

The Council passes federal laws, oversees the executive, ratifies treaties, and approves nominations of specified officials.

The Council of Representatives of Iraq has the same name in Arabic (مجلس النواب, Majlis an-Nuwwab) as the lower legislative houses of Bahrain, Morocco, Jordan, and Yemen, and as the unicameral legislatures of Lebanon and Tunisia.

[4][5] A group of Sunni lawmakers boycotted parliament in a June 2007 protest of the removal of the speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, after a series of controversial actions.

The parliament was under pressure from the United States to pass legislation dealing with members of the Baath party, distribution of oil revenues, regional autonomy, and constitutional reform, by September 2007.

The main areas of dispute concerned the "open list" electoral system and the voters roll in Kirkuk Governorate, which Arab and Turkmen parties alleged had been manipulated by the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq.

[10] The Council of Representatives voted on 11 February 2018, to add an extra seat for minorities, in the Wasit Governorate for Feyli Kurds, making the total number of parliamentarians equal to 329 prior to the 2018 parliamentary elections.