Posted in: 29/08/2022 – 13:10Last updated: 29/08/2022 – 13:08
Baghdad (AFP) – Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr announced on Monday his “final retirement” from political work, while Iraq is mired in a severe political crisis.
“I now announce my final retirement,” Al-Sadr said in a statement on Monday. Since the last legislative elections in October 2021, Iraq has known complete political paralysis due to the failure of negotiations between the main parties to reach an agreement to nominate a candidate for prime minister in particular.
Al-Sadr, who has been camping out by thousands of his supporters for nearly a month in and around the parliament building, calls for the dissolution of parliament and the holding of early legislative elections in order to move the country on the path of reform.
Al-Sadr calls for the “reform” of the situation in Iraq from the top of the pyramid of power to the bottom and to end the “corruption” that the country’s institutions suffer from.
Since July, tension has risen between al-Sadr and his opponents in the “coordinating framework”, a political alliance that includes pro-Iranian factions.
While the supporters of al-Sadr, born in 1974, insisted on continuing the sit-in at the parliament building, the supporters of the framework camp on a main road that leads to one of the entrances to the Green Zone.
The holy city of Najaf for Shiites, located south of Baghdad, is a stronghold of the Sadrist movement, while tens of thousands of its supporters are spread out, especially in central and southern Iraq.
© 2022 AFP
