Dozens of supporters of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr continued their protest in front of the Iraqi parliament in the heavily fortified Green Zone in the capital, Baghdad, on Saturday, amid a months-long political crisis.
The demonstrators denounced what they called “the politicization of the judiciary in favor of the coordination framework,” a coalition of Iran-backed parties and Sadr’s Shiite opponents. The protesters demanded the dissolution of the House of Representatives, the organization of early elections, constitutional amendments and the overthrow of Sadr’s opponents.
Haitham Abbas, a supporter of Muqtada al-Sadr, said: “The corrupt parliament must be dissolved and go to early elections. Enough. Enough. Politicians are hurting people and starving them.”
The followers and rivals of the Shiite cleric from Iran-backed Shiite groups have been at odds since the results of parliamentary elections were released last year. Unlike Iran-backed groups, al-Sadr desires better relations with Arab states including Saudi Arabia, a Sunni power and Iran’s main rival in the region.
Sadr’s supporters did not hesitate to storm the parliament building in Baghdad earlier this month, and they have since pitched their tents and camped outside the building.
Sadr, whose camp won the majority of votes in the parliamentary elections that took place last October, was unable to form a majority government and following eight months of stalemate and competition with rival Shiite factions backed by Iran, he abandoned the idea of forming a government. And the struggle for power between Iraq’s Shiites in a political stalemate and exacerbated the economic crisis.
It is noteworthy that political developments pushed the country into the deepest political crisis in Iraq, with the outbreak of a power struggle between the two main Shiite groups.
Al-Sadr suggests that all parties not participate in forming the government to solve the crisis
The leader of the Iraqi Shiite Sadrist movement, Muqtada al-Sadr, suggested Saturday that “all parties” that have been on the political scene since the fall of Saddam Hussein, including his own, give up the government positions they occupy to allow the political crisis in Iraq to be resolved.
Al-Sadr, who enjoys great influence and is difficult to predict, has the ability to extricate Iraq from the impasse in which it has been mired since the October 2021 elections.
Since then, Iraq is still without a new prime minister or government, as the Shiite forces have not succeeded in agreeing among themselves.
The Sadrist movement demands the dissolution of parliament and the holding of early legislative elections, while the Shiite coordination framework loyal to Iran wants to hold these elections, but with conditions, demanding the formation of a government before holding early elections.
But Muqtada al-Sadr considered Saturday his previous demand to dissolve parliament and hold early elections less important now, and added a new demand, in a clear shift in his position.
The Shiite cleric wrote in a tweet that “there is more important than dissolving parliament and holding early elections.” He continued, “The most important thing is not to involve all the parties and personalities that participated in the political process since the US occupation in 2003 and to this day (…), including the Sadrist movement,” the party he leads.
“I am ready, within a maximum period of 72 hours, to sign an agreement that includes this,” he added, noting that “if this is not achieved, there is no room for reform.”
But al-Sadr did not reveal the names of the personalities he intends to appoint to lead the next government.
The most prominent slogan of al-Sadr that he has raised since the start of the crisis is the fight once morest corruption, and his party does not participate in the current government, but has had influence in some ministries over the past years.
For regarding a month, his supporters have been holding a sit-in in and around the parliament building, and for a short period of time besieged the Supreme Judicial Council.
And this month, the current Prime Minister, Mustafa Al-Kazemi, launched a “national dialogue” to try to get Iraq out of the impasse, but the representatives of the Sadrist movement and their leader boycotted this initiative and considered that it “resulted only in some points that do not fatten and do not sing from hunger.”
