In a speech on August 3, Sadr asked his supporters to continue their sit-in inside the Iraqi parliament building and rejected calls for dialogue issued by Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi

August 05, 2022 by Peoples Dispatch

Muqtada al-Sadr. (Photo: Iraqi New Agency)

In a speech on Wednesday, August 3, Iraqi clecric Muqtada al-Sadr asked his supporters sitting inside the parliament building since last Saturday to continue their sit-in until the current parliament is dissolved and early elections are held.
In a televised speech that was delivered from his stronghold Najaf, Sadr rejected the calls for dialogue with the Coordination Framework and other parties as suggested by caretaker Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi and President Barham Salih earlier. Calls for dialogue had also been extended by most other parties in the parliament, including Coordination Framework’s ally al-Fatah.
Sadr claimed that his attempts for a dialogue had failed and “it has brought nothing to us and to the nation but only ruin and corruption,” Al-Jazeera reported. “I know the majority of the people are fed up with the whole ruling class, which also includes some affiliated with the Sadrist movement,” he said, claiming that all of the existing ruling class will “not exist anymore,” Rudaw reported.
Several political groups in Iraq welcomed Sadr’s speech on Wednesday and expressed their support for his calls for early elections. Former Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, now the head of the al-Nasr front in the parliament with four seats, called for reforms to the country’s political system.
Hadi al-Amiri, head of the al-Fateh alliance which is an ally of the Coordination Framework, also supported the call for fresh elections claiming that “previous elections were marred by a lot of suspicion and objections.”
The Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) had already supported the call for fresh elections in the country. The leaders of the Democratic Way, a broad coalition of parties including the ICP, called for peaceful reforms to the country’s political system in a press conference on August 2. Raid Fahmi, Iraqi politician and economist, in a tweet on Wednesday also supported the need for popular pressure to bring necessary political reforms.
The storming of the parliament building located in the high security Green Zone in capital Baghdad last week came after the nomination of Mohammad Shia al-Sudani as the new prime minister by Sadr’s rival, the Coordination Framework. Sadr had claimed that Sudani was corrupt and not acceptable as the prime ministerial candidate.
Elections in Iraq were held in October last year in which no party or coalition could win the necessary majority. The Sadrist movement won the largest number of seats (73), but all its MPs resigned last month on Sadr’s instructions after he failed to create a national majority government.
Sadr had proposed a national majority government as a partial way to address the demands of protesters who want a complete overhaul of the political system devised under the US led-occupation in 2004.
Protests against the political system and ruling elites in Iraq have been going on for years now. Protesters have accused the ruling elite of being inefficient and corrupt, surviving in power due to the sectarian quota or Muhasasa system. They have demanded an end to this quota system.
Sadr had claimed that a majority government, unlike the consensus based administration, would be more accountable to the people.

Online News EditorAugust 5, 2022 

 
Baghdad, Aug 5 (EFE).- Followers of Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada Al Sadr on Friday ended their occupation of the country’s parliament building, which they had held for six days, and camped in its surroundings with a new show of force to gather thousands of people for Friday prayers outside the building.
Baghdad Police Major Tahsin Al Murshidi told Efe that all of the Sadrists had left the parliament headquarters, located in the fortified Green Zone in the center of the capital, allowing the main entrance of the building to be sealed.
The protesters, who seized the hemicycle ahead of an imminent vote to elect a new president of the country by a pro-Iranian coalition that rivals Al-Sadr, are still camped out in tents in front of the parliament, Al Murshidi added.
One of the cleric’s collaborators and Shiite political leader, Amir al Rikabi, confirmed this to Efe, adding that the voluntary eviction, which had been ordered by Al Sadr himself, took place early in the afternoon and that the demonstrators will continue to be stationed around the Hemicycle until their demands are met.
Their demands, outlined by the leader of the movement in a televised speech on Tuesday, consist of the dissolution of the parliament that emerged from last October’s elections, new elections and a political, constitutional and electoral reform.
The transfer of the Sadrists’ protest from inside to outside the Parliament came after tens of thousands had gathered at noon in a nearby square for Friday prayers.
It was led by one of the leaders of the Sadrist movement, Muhammad al-Musawi, who in his sermon criticized the past government’s corruption, which he linked to the formation of consensus executives, with quotas of power for all parties, a system that Al Sadr tried to break in the last session of parliament.
After his Sadrist Bloc won the October elections with only 73 of the 329 seats in Parliament, he tried to establish alliances to form a majority government, but was unable to do so due to rival parties demanding a consensus executive. They boycotted the vote to elect the president, a step prior to the formation of the Cabinet of Ministers.
After the prayer, those gathered demonstrated with chants of “Yes to reform” and “No to corruption”.
Meanwhile, the Speaker of Parliament, Muhammad al-Halbousi, re-elected thanks to the votes of the armed alliance around the Sadrist Bloc, expressed on his Twitter account his support for Al Sadr’s request to hold early elections “to start a new democratic process under the roof of the constitution”.
On Thursday night, the Coordination Framework, a coalition of pro-Iranian parties with a majority in parliament after the resignation of the deputies of the rival Sadrist Bloc at the beginning of June, had also expressed its support for an early election but on the condition that there is a “national consensus”. EFE

BEHIND THE LINES: The possibility of further deterioration remains very real.
Iraq is currently passing through its most tense days since the ISIS war eight years ago. 

The Jerusalem Post – By JONATHAN SPYER
Published: AUGUST 5, 2022 21:34

SUPPORTERS OF Iraqi populist leader Muqtada al-Sadr gather for a sit-in at the parliament building, amid political crisis in Baghdad, on Tuesday. (photo credit: Khalid Al-Mousily/Reuters)

Protesters associated with the Sadrist trend in Iraq this week began an open-ended sit-in at the Iraqi parliament. The immediate cause of the protests is the deadlock that has gripped the political system since the parliamentary elections held last October.

The Sairoun list, associated with the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, won the largest number of seats of any list in those elections – 73 in a parliament of 329. Sadr’s followers then set out on a groundbreaking path, seeking to form a government based not on the unity of Shia forces, but rather on a combination of particular elements from among the three main Iraqi communities – Shia and Sunni Arabs and Kurds.

This move was set to exclude the Iran-supported element in Iraqi politics, organized under the name of the “Coordination Framework” following the elections. Poor electoral management had resulted in the parties associated with the Tehran-financed and controlled Shia militias performing very badly in the elections. The State of Law list of pro-Iran former prime minister Nuri al-Maliki picked up some of the lost votes, but overall the pro-Iran element performed badly.

A direct challenge to the Iranian project in Iraq
Sadr has long-standing differences with the regime in Tehran. After October, he set out to form a coalition based on his alliance with the Kurdish Democratic Party of Massoud Barzani, and the Sunni Taqadum list of Muhammad Halbousi.

Sadr’s efforts to build this coalition constituted a direct challenge to the Iranian project in Iraq. Tehran’s method for the takeover of Arab states (in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, at least; Yemen is a different situation) does not consist of building a revolutionary movement and seeking to topple regimes by revolt. Rather, Iran seeks through the establishment and control of political-military organizations to occupy the state from within, and gradually weaken all elements other than itself.

A poster of Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the Sadr City district of Baghdad, Iraq June 21, 2021. (credit: REUTERS/AHMED SAAD/FILE PHOTO)

This point should be noted carefully. A Baghdad-based British diplomat in conversation with this author in 2017 then dismissed my concerns at the Iranian ambition in Iraq, telling me that his embassy wasn’t “worried about Abu Mahdi off playing Che Guevara out in the dust somewhere.”

This formulation is near perfect in its inaccuracy. Abu Mahdi, or his successors, don’t intend to be off in the dust playing any game at all. Rather, for their project to work, they need and intend to be in the government ministries and boardrooms in the capital. Sadr’s effort to exclude the Iran-associated element from the government threatened to keep them away from the vital centers of power and resources.

For this reason, the pro-Iranian elements set out to frustrate Sadr’s effort. They succeeded. Sadr’s inability to muster sufficient numbers in parliament, combined with federal court rulings, prevented him from getting his choice of president or prime minister. It frustrated efforts to form a government and bring together the Sadrists with West-aligned Kurdish and Sunni forces.

Realizing the futility of further efforts, Sadr made the bold decision to order the mass resignation of his parliamentary faction. Street agitation by the Sadrists followed, leading to the current parliamentary sit-in. Sadr’s supporters are seeking to prevent the formation of a rival coalition centered on pro-Iran factions. The announcement by the Coordination Framework of a proposed prime ministerial candidate, Muhammad Shia Sudani, prompted the current protests.

The Sadrist protests: Significant and ominous
SADR’S DECISION to go to the streets is in some ways potentially more significant than the grassroots Shia protests of 2019-20. The latter were an authentic expression of the discontent felt by young Iraqis. The Sadrist protests are more stage-managed, but precisely for this reason they are more ominous. The protesters two years ago were young, unarmed, and defenseless against the authorities, and against the Shia militias, who helped to suppress them.

Sadr’s men, by contrast, are well-armed and have their own extensive knowledge and experience of paramilitary warfare. For that reason, Iraqis are currently deeply concerned about the possibility of violence. Counter protests by the Coordination Framework have been called, though the Badr Organization, the largest and most powerful of the pro-Iran groups, has made clear that it will not be taking part in the protests at this stage. The possibility of clashes remains a real one.

The Sadrists are demanding that parliament be dissolved and new elections held. In the meantime, they want Mustafa al-Kadhimi, the current prime minister, to remain in office. They are also calling for the replacement of a number of federal judges.

Sadr is currently calling on other factions to support what he has referred to as a “spontaneous revolution.” The Coordination Framework, meanwhile, described Sadr’s remarks as “a call for a coup against the people, the state and its institutions.”

Iran’s unique challenges in Iraq
Sadr’s actions illustrate the unique challenges faced by Iran in Iraq as it seeks to cement its ascendancy. Of the four countries in which Iran is seriously engaged (Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen) two have working parliamentary systems – Iraq and Lebanon. But despite the formal trappings of an elected government, Iran’s ascendancy in Lebanon is near complete, precisely because of the absence of any real potential for street-level resistance to the Iranian design. Since 1990, all potential centers for real resistance to the Iranian advance have been neutralized.

In Iraq, as the events of the last days show, this is not quite the case. Sadr hardly stands for a vision of Iraqi governance that can offer a better future for the inhabitants of that unfortunate country. He may, however, serve as a partial block to the continued consolidation of Iranian control.

Recommended by

In this regard, influential Saudi columnist Tariq al-Homayed, in his July 31 column “The Shia-Shia Conflict” in the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, warned that “no one can guarantee that Iran would not resort to violence that targets specific figures to change the rules of the game, just as it did in Lebanon when it assassinated former prime minister Rafik Hariri, marking a pivotal moment in the country.”
“No one can guarantee that Iran would not resort to violence that targets specific figures to change the rules of the game, just as it did in Lebanon when it assassinated former prime minister Rafik Hariri, marking a pivotal moment in the country.”
Tariq al-Homayed

Al-Homayed went on to assert that in the event of an eruption of violence “then all eyes will be turned to the army and security forces that will find themselves obligated to take a stand.”

It is not clear, however, on whose behalf or for what goal the state security forces would intervene, in such circumstances. One should also note that different elements of the security forces are identified with different sides, in this dispute.

The possibility of further deterioration, in any case, remains very real. Iraq is currently passing through its most tense days since the ISIS war eight years ago.

i24NEWS
August 05, 2022  

 
Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90Israeli Interior Minister and head of the Yamina party Ayelet Shaked arrives to a press conference at Hamacabia Village in Ramat Gan, central Israel, on July 27, 2022. 

If Shaked’s party were to join Netanyahu’s, it would bring the opposition leader’s bloc to a majority

Israeli Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked’s Zionist Spirit party is expected to pass the electoral threshold, but narrowly, winning only 3.5 percent of the vote, according to a recent poll.
The survey, published by Maariv on Friday, also revealed a slight shift of former Yamina voters to Shaked’s camp, to the detriment of the Religious Zionist Party.
Meanwhile, opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s Liked Party was projected to earn 34 seats, Israel’s Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid would get 23, the Blue and White: New Hope would earn 11, and nine for Religious Zionist.
Shas would get eight seats, United Torah Judaism would garner seven, the Arab Joint List would get six, the Labor Party and Yisrael Beytenu five, and four seats would be gained by Meretz, Zionist Spirit, and the Islamic Ra’am party.

According to the poll, the bloc supporting Lapid would earn 52 seats and the pro-Netanyahu camp would get 58 seats, but without the support of Zionist Spirit.
If Shaked – head of the right-wing Yamina alliance – decided to join Netanyahu’s bloc, it would bring it to a majority in Israel’s parliament and allow it to form a government.
The poll also found that smaller parties like Free Israel of Eli Avidar and the economic party of Professor Yaron Zelekha would earn 1.3 percent and 1.1 percent of the votes, which would be insufficient to seat members in parliament.