The political situation is hardening in Iraq. Three days after briefly occupying Parliament, protesters pro Moqtada Sadr, an influential Shiite political leader, again entered the Chamber on Saturday. They announced a “sit-in (which will last) until further notice”.
Waving Iraqi flags, portraits of Moqtada Sadr and religious signs, the demonstrators crowded into the entrance hall of Parliament and then into the hemicycle, making the victory sign and taking selfies in a good atmosphere. child, reported AFP journalists on the spot.
“A corrupt and incapable government”
The political deadlock is total in Iraq, pending the appointment of a new President and a Prime Minister ten months after the October 2021 legislative elections. Kingmaker and troublemaker on the political scene, Moqtada Sadr has launched a campaign of maximum pressure against his opponents, rejecting their candidate for the post of head of government.
The demonstrators reject the candidacy for the post of Prime Minister of Mohamed Chia al-Soudani, considered close to the former head of government Nouri al-Maliki, historical enemy of Moqtada Sadr. In the gardens of Parliament, Sattar al-Aliawi, 47, said he was demonstrating against “a corrupt and incapable government” which he said would be formed by opponents of the Shiite leader.
If he has today decided to maintain the pressure on his adversaries, Moqtada Sadr had nevertheless left them the task of forming a government, by causing his 73 deputies to resign in June in one of these about-faces of which he has the secret. The Sadrists then represented the first force within the Parliament of 329 deputies.
At least 100 protesters injured
After the incursions into Parliament, the Coordination Framework in turn called on “the popular masses (…) to demonstrate peacefully to defend the State and its legitimacy”. In total, at least 100 demonstrators and 25 members of the security forces were injured on Saturday according to the Ministry of Health, during the demonstrations interspersed with tear gas fire from the police and stone throwing from the protesters.
“The ongoing escalation is deeply worrying,” the UN assistance mission in Iraq said on Twitter, calling on all actors “to de-escalate”. In a televised address, the Prime Minister, Moustafa al-Kazimi, who dispatches current affairs, called on the political blocs “to sit down to negotiate and agree”.
Hadi al-Ameri, who leads a faction of the influential Hashd al-Shaabi, the former pro-Iran paramilitaries, also called on the Sadrist Current and the Coordination Framework to favor “restraint (…) dialogue and constructive agreements to overcome differences”.
During the night from Friday to Saturday, supporters of Sadr ransacked the offices of the Daawa party of Nouri Al-Maliki in Baghdad, as well as the premises of the Hikma Current, the formation of the Shiite politician Ammar al-Hakim, who is part of the Cadre of Coordination, according to a security source.