Iraq’s powerful Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr announced on Monday his definitive retirement from politics and the closing of his offices, in response to a stalemate that has lasted ten months and has given Iraq its longest tenure. without government.
The response from his supporters was immediate – dozens of people stormed the government headquarters and plunged into the pool. The Republican Palace is in Baghdad’s Green Zone, a region of foreign ministries and missions that had been occupied for weeks by groups of pro-Sadr protesters.
In the midst of the confusion on Monday, shots were heard, according to witnesses told international news agencies.
After the invasion, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, Sadr’s interim prime minister, suspended his cabinet meetings. The army decreed a nationwide curfew from the end of the day, and urged protesters to leave the Green Zone to avoid further clashes.
Sadr did not elaborate on the closure of his offices, but said cultural and religious institutions would remain open.
Sadr is one of the few people in Iraq — other than Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a major Shia religious authority — capable of mobilizing the masses. He has millions of followers, a militia and a financial empire. What Sadr doesn’t yet have is a government — and that’s what he’s been demanding since his party won the election.
The crisis that is once again boiling has been brewing for months. Sadr won the most votes in October last year, but lost a majority in parliament. In June, after failing to form a government that excluded his rivals, mainly Iran-backed Shia parties, he opted to remove all of his lawmakers from the government.
In the midst of the crisis, he insisted on the dissolution of Parliament and early elections. He says no politician who has been in power since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 can hold office.
Sadr has galvanized his legion of supporters in recent months, disrupting Iraq’s effort to recover from decades of conflict and foreign economic sanctions. On the 30th, his supporters invaded Parliament, in an act that left 125 injured.
“I announce my final withdrawal,” Sadr said in a statement posted on his Twitter account on Monday, criticizing other Shiite political leaders for failing to heed his calls for reform.
This is not the first time the leader has withdrawn from politics – he had already left the government in the past and dissolved militias loyal to him. However, he ended up returning to public life after similar announcements, but the current political impasse in Iraq seems more difficult to resolve than previous ones.
As with other populist leaders around the world, Sadr’s speech is marked by contradictions. Despite criticizing the system and calling for a new, less corrupt political order, he benefits from the state of affairs. His followers hold government positions, for example.
