Shafaq News- Washington
Iraqi political satirist Ahmed Al-Basheer on Wednesday delivered a public critique of Iraq’s post-2003 political order, mocking the opaque rise of businessman Ali Al-Zaidi toward the premiership and arguing that elections in Iraq have become little more than a ceremonial exercise overshadowed by elite bargaining and foreign influence.
Speaking during a session hosted by the Atlantic Council, Al-Basheer said Iraqis were introduced to Al-Zaidi’s candidacy with almost no public understanding of who he was politically. “We woke up one morning to headlines saying Ali Al-Zaidi would become the next prime minister,” he said. “Honestly, I had never heard of him as a politician. I only knew him as a businessman whose food products I personally buy abroad.”
The comedian then turned the discussion into a broader indictment of Iraq’s political culture. “We know nothing about this man,” he continued. “Is he Islamist? Liberal? Atheist? Nobody knows because he has never even given an interview. We are dealing with a ghost prime minister. We do not even know what his voice sounds like. The voice we eventually hear could literally be AI.”
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Drawing laughter from the audience, Al-Basheer mocked the media image circulated of Al-Zaidi, saying he had expected “the traditional Iraqi political figure with a thick moustache and an old-fashioned suit,” only to find someone who “looks more like your friend from a café smoking shisha than the man expected to run a country drowning in crises.”
But the sharpest part of Al-Basheer’s remarks targeted the political system itself rather than Al-Zaidi personally. He argued that Iraqi elections have steadily lost meaning because real power lies in closed-door negotiations among party leaders and regional actors.
“Since 2005, Iraqis vote in one direction and America or Iran pushes things in another,” he said. “We exhaust ourselves with purple ink [elections] while nine political leaders sit in a room deciding who comes next. Why continue this game at all?”
Al-Basheer described parliament as a “gold mine” for comedy, portraying lawmakers as figures driven less by policy conviction than by instructions from party leadership.
“Our MPs suddenly become guardians of morality when a woman wearing a short skirt appears on television,” he said sarcastically. “But on oil, corruption, and stolen money, they turn into puppets waiting for WhatsApp instructions.”
The Iraqi presenter also painted a bleak picture of media freedom inside the country, arguing that most television channels operate as extensions of political factions rather than independent institutions. “Yes, Iraq has hundreds of channels,” he said. “But they function exactly like our democracy. Every outlet attacks the rival side only until political deals are reached. Once agreements happen, the ‘freedom of expression’ disappears overnight.”
He added that his ability to criticize political figures openly was tied largely to the fact that he lives outside Iraq.
Still, Al-Basheer surprised some attendees by saying that the era of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki witnessed broader tolerance toward media criticism than later periods. “I criticized al-Maliki relentlessly and he never pursued me legally,” he said.
Despite his criticism, Al-Basheer ended on a more hopeful note, saying meaningful change in Iraq would ultimately come from society itself rather than from outside intervention.
He also recalled receiving a phone call from former Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi after Al-Abadi left office, during which Al-Abadi thanked him for exposing “the snakes” surrounding his administration, despite years of criticism directed at him on the show.
“I once believed one sentence could change the country overnight,” he said. “Now I believe change takes time. Iraqis will eventually reclaim their country from corruption and militias, just as the October protest movement surprised all of us. No Iron Man is coming to save Iraq —Iraqis will have to do it themselves.”