Iraq is mired in the political crisis. The Iraqi president put his resignation on Thursday, December 26, in the balance, explaining that he refused to propose to Parliament the name of the candidate of the pro-Iran for the post of prime minister, Assaad al-Aïdani.
Calling himself the guarantor of the "integrity" and "independence" of the country, the head of state Barham Saleh - a Kurd from a party traditionally close to the Iranian neighbor but who since the beginning of the Iraqi revolt has made resistance in the midst of authorities conspired by the street - sent a letter to Parliament.
The president says he is "ready to resign" because, he says, the Constitution obliges him to propose the candidate of the "largest coalition" in Parliament, a title claimed by the coalition led by the pro-Iran paramilitaries, but that other forces are fighting over it. "The president has no constitutional right to object (...) so here I am announcing that I am ready to resign before Parliament," he said in his letter.
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"We don't want Assaad the Iranian"
Since Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi resigned at the end of November, after being released by the great Ayatollah Ali Sistani, tutelary figure of Iraqi politics, the pro-Irans have been pushing for the resigning minister of higher education to replace him.
But since they could not impose it on President Saleh, who argued that his designation would further fuel street anger, they now have a new man.
This is Assaad al-Aïdani, governor of Basra, who already distinguished himself in the summer of 2018 by personally descending from his convoy to attack protesters in his big oil city, the second largest city in country.
"We don't want Assaad the Iranian," chant the protesters in Kout, a southern city, while in Tahrir Square in Baghdad, huge portraits of this former opponent of Saddam Hussein, who had taken refuge in Iran for a time, then detained for several years in the jails of the dictator, spread out, crossed by a large red cross.
No "party candidates"
For the protesters, "party candidates" were immediately refused. They want independents and technocrats who have not been in business within the political system, installed in 2003 by the Americans and now drowned by the Iranians.
Since October 1, they have been calling on the street for a complete overhaul of the system of distributing posts according to ethnic groups and faiths and the renewal of a political class unchanged for 16 years.
>> Read also: Iranian influence in Iraq, target of anger of demonstrators
"We will continue the movement despite the repression of the authorities and the armed men of the militias," promises Ali Jihad, a protester in Nassiriya, where, during the night, demonstrators once again burned the seat of the governorate, already targeted by a fire. since the start of the revolt.
In Diwaniya, also in the south, they burned a new headquarters of a pro-Iran militia and continue to block one of the country's main highways on Thursday.
With AFP
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