Politicians and observers believe that the Iraqi electorate punished the head of the central government in the recent provincial elections. This is because his economic policies, particularly on the provision of services and improving standards of living, have failed.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law Coalition lost control of most of the provincial governments that it won four years ago. Chief among these is the Baghdad provincial government — the country's political capital — and that of Basra — Iraq’s economic capital.

Maliki's opponents, the young clerics Ammar al-Hakim and Muqtada al-Sadr, successfully formed local governments in Baghdad, Basra and a number of Iraq’s central and southern provinces. Yet their blocs came in the second and third places, following Maliki's bloc, in the local elections in April.

Faleh Hassan, an Iraqi writer and journalist, believes that “The framework of the recent local elections was political; however, the voters’ motives were purely economic.” Hassan told Al-Monitor that “Iraqi voters have punished Maliki’s bloc in most of the provinces, as it managed local administrations and failed to provide even the most basic services.”