Muqtada al-Sadr asks his bloc to resign from Iraqi parliament

Muqtada al-Sadr asks his bloc to resign from Iraqi parliament
June 10, 2022, 8:50 am

Moqtada al-Sadr addresses his supporters at the grand mosque of Kufa on September 21, 2018. (AFP)

The official Iraqi news agency reported that Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Thursday (June 9) called on his parliamentary bloc members to resign from the parliament over the failure to form a new government in Iraq.

The Anadolu Agency said that the al-Sadr bloc has 73 legislators in the 329-seat parliament, following parliamentary elections held in October last year.

al-Sadr said: "A national majority government is the only way to reform the country.”

He seeks to form a national majority government without former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his Iran-aligned coalition.

Most Shia parliamentary groups have rejected the move, citing their Coordination Framework, which calls for a coalition government involving all parliamentary blocs.

The very successful facelift of Ammar al-Hakim and Muqtada al-Sadr

The October 2022 parliamentary elections produced a winner in Muqtada al-Sadr.

He is the traditionally anti-Western cleric who leads Iraq’s most powerful socio-political movement and one of its most dominant armed groups. al-Sadr has long been at odds with the West.

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