BAGHDAD — Several hundred supporters of Shiite cleric
Moqtada Al-Sadr launched a sit-in
outside Iraq’s top judicial body on Tuesday, ratcheting up tensions in a showdown
with a rival Shiite alliance.
اضافة اعلان
Caretaker Prime Minister
Mustafa Al-Kadhimi cut
short a visit to Egypt, where he had been due to take part in a five-nation
summit, to return home to monitor developments.
Kadhimi “called on all political parties to calm
down and to take advantage of the opportunity for national dialogue to get the
country out of its current crisis”, his office said.
The standoff between the Sadrists and their rivals
in the pro-Iran Coordination Framework has triggered an intensifying war of
words, but so far no violence.
The Sadrists, who have already been camped outside
parliament for the past three weeks, pitched tents outside the gates of the
judicial body’s headquarters in Baghdad, AFP correspondents reported.
They carried placards demanding the dissolution of
parliament and new elections, 10 months after an inconclusive poll failed to
deliver a majority government.
Even though his political bloc has taken part in
previous administrations, securing top jobs in government ministries, Sadr
himself has managed to keep above the political fray.
He is lionized by his supporters as an outsider
dedicated to the fight against a corrupt elite.
“We want to stamp out corruption,” said Abu Karar
al-Alyawi, a Sadr supporter among those demonstrating.
“The judicial system is being blackmailed, or maybe
it’s corrupt too.”
On August 10, Sadr gave the Supreme Judicial Council
one week to dissolve parliament to end the political deadlock, but the council
ruled it lacked the authority to do so.
In the face of Tuesday’s protest, the council
announced it was suspending work until further notice.
Talks boycotted by Sadrists
The UN mission in Iraq said
it respected the right to “peaceful protest”, while urging “respect for state
institutions”.
Police deployed in numbers around the headquarters,
which unlike parliament, lies outside Baghdad’s high-security Green Zone
government and diplomatic compound.
Following the start of the sit-in, the Coordination
Framework said it would “refuse any call for direct dialogue” with the
Sadrists, until they put an end to “the occupation of institutions”.
The Coordination Framework, which has been holding a
sit-in of its own just outside the Green Zone, wants a transitional government
before new polls are held.
They include former paramilitaries of the
Tehran-backed Hashed al-Shaabi network, and the party of ex-prime minister Nuri
Al-Maliki, a longtime Sadr foe.
Kadhimi, the prime minister, last week convened
crisis talks with party leaders, but they were boycotted by the Sadrists.
Since the aftermath of the US-led invasion of 2003,
Iraq has been governed under a sectarian power-sharing system that reserves the
premiership for the country’s Shiite majority community.
The Sadrists insist that after emerging from 2021
elections as the largest bloc in parliament — but not an absolute majority —
the constitution be amended to give it the right to nominate the prime
minister, something their opponents strongly oppose.
The persistent failure of the rival Shiite factions
to form a government in a country blighted by ailing infrastructure and
crumbling public services has sparked mounting public frustration.
Iraqis grown used to daily power cuts lasting much
of the day now also face water shortages as drought ravages swathes of the
country.
Despite its oil wealth, many Iraqis are mired in
poverty, and some 35 percent of young people are unemployed, according to the
UN.
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