Iraq woke up on Monday 1er August, with the feeling of walking on the edge of a precipice. The rivalries within the Shiite camp that have paralyzed the state since the October 2021 legislative elections have turned dangerous face-to-face. During the night, army reinforcements were deployed to secure the “green zone”, the district of Baghdad which houses the institutions. Within it, thousands of supporters of Moqtada Al-Sadr have been occupying Parliament since Saturday to demand its dissolution and the holding of new elections. Hundreds of others joined them on Sunday evening, galvanized by the Shiite populist leader’s call to broaden the mobilization and seize “the opportunity for a radical change in the political system”.
In response, his rivals in the Coordination Framework, an alliance made up in particular of party-militias close to Iran, which has become the first force within the assembly, called for counter-demonstrations, Monday afternoon, to its surroundings to protest against the“continuous escalation” of Mr. Sadr, which is similar, in their eyes, to a call for a ” Rebellion “ against state institutions, while reiterating their offer of dialogue.
Old grudges
By engaging in the standoff in the street against his opponents last week, Moqtada Al-Sadr precipitated the battle which has pitted them for ten months for the leadership of the Shiite camp. He had been threatening to do so since he slammed the door of parliament in June, exasperated at having failed to form a majority government with only his Sunni and Kurdish allies. He had then provoked the resignation of his seventy-three deputies and left the field open to his rivals to try to form a government, on the condition that it meet his demands to be free from all foreign influence and corruption.
Moqtada Al-Sadr followed through on his threats on Wednesday following the Coordinating Framework’s decision to nominate Mohamed Shia Al-Soudani, a 52-year-old Shiite politician, as prime minister. For several hours, his supporters occupied parliament to oppose this appointment. Mr. Sadr again beat the recall of his supporters on Saturday to prevent the holding of a parliamentary session intended to launch the process of forming the government. Its sympathizers ransacked in Baghdad the offices of the Dawa party of former Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki and the premises of the Hikma current, the formation of Ammar Al-Hakim, both members of the Coordination Framework.
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