Do we like them?Do we like Mohammed Shia al-Sudani?
Our score: 5 out of 10. No harmful words of his own turned up, but the record is thin on his personal stance and clouded by laws passed on his watch and denied wiretap claims.
Sudani was born in 1970 and grew up under Saddam Hussein. His father and five other relatives were executed by the regime on charges of belonging to the Dawa Party, and unlike many of today's Iraqi leaders he stayed in the country through Saddam's rule. He became mayor of Amara, then governor of Maysan in 2009, and served as human rights minister under Maliki from 2010 to 2014.
Soon after taking the top job in 2022 he demanded the return of about $2.5 billion taken from the Finance Ministry in the so-called tax heist. In December 2024 a Baghdad court sentenced ten suspects, including the alleged mastermind in absentia, but the case has its sore spots. That alleged mastermind had been arrested in October 2023 and then released on bail, a decision that caused a furious row, and The National argued the convictions may be more symbolic than significant.
Then came the wiretap row. In 2024 an MP said he had been wiretapped by a network that included a former official from Sudani's office, and The National reported allegations that Sudani's side eavesdropped on rivals in the Coordination Framework. Sudani called the claims baseless and “the lie of the century”. The judiciary opened an investigation but, at the time, had named only that one former official.
On the harm test, we found no anti-LGBTQ+ or anti-women words from Sudani himself, and no sign he campaigns against anyone. But the record is not clean: Iraq's parliament criminalised same-sex relations in 2024 and, in January 2025, passed a personal status amendment that Human Rights Watch says sets back women and girls. The HRW piece doesn't mention the prime minister, so we can't pin either law on him, but both happened on his watch. We couldn't open a report on his own position on the 2024 law, so that gap is real.
On the company he keeps, he rose through Maliki's Dawa Party and was brought to power by the Shiite Coordination Framework, which Reuters describes as including Iran-aligned factions. Yet in a November 2025 Reuters interview he said the plan was for the anti-ISIS coalition to leave by September 2026, put all weapons under state control, and end Iranian gas imports by the end of 2027. He also said “no side can pull Iraq to war or conflict”.
The recent chapter is messy politics. After the November 2025 election, Sudani dropped his bid for a second term to break the deadlock and backed Maliki, his former rival. Donald Trump warned Washington would no longer support Iraq if Maliki returned, and Sudani's coalition has since hinted it may withdraw its support. Some observers read his step aside as a tactical move to make his own return easier for Washington to accept.