Tension increased between Iraqi anti-government protesters yesterday, with supporters of the Sadrist movement, Muqtada Al-Sadr, in the protest squares in the country's cities, a day after a protester was killed during a clash between the two parties.
In the southern city of Diwaniya, the dispute developed into confrontations between young anti-regime demonstrators and Sadr supporters, as police forces intervened to separate the two sides, but protesters launched anti-Sadr slogans and the Iraqi authorities and Iran, whom they accused of supporting authority and suppressing protests.
And the Iraqi security forces published patrols yesterday at schools and government departments to ensure the return of study and work after the majority of them stopped months ago in most cities in the south by demonstrators, with the aim of pressuring the government to carry out long-awaited reforms.
A source in Al-Diwaniyah confirmed the deployment of security forces at schools and government institutions to secure return work.
Despite this, hundreds of students rejected this and went to the main anti-government protest yards, holding up Iraqi flags and banners, one of which read "The march of sit-in of Diwaniya preparations," according to the source.
In Nasiriyah, all schools were reopened after the local police forces deployed their patrols, according to spokesperson for the Education Directorate Halim al-Husseini, but students took to the streets insisting that their protests continue.
Protests have escalated over the past two days between young protesters angry at the nomination of Prime Minister-designate Muhammad Tawfiq Allawi and supporters of Sadr.
On Monday evening, this division developed in Hilla, south of Baghdad, where an anti-government protester died of his wounds after being stabbed with a knife, during an attack on demonstrators of people wearing blue caps, such as those used by Muqtada Al-Sadr's supporters, according to medical and security sources.
Allawi, 65, was nominated on February 1, after two months of political stalemate over the alternative candidate for Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, who submitted his resignation in December.
Al-Sadr announced his support for Allawi's mandate, while the protesters rejected him as very close to the ruling elite against which they are demonstrating.
On the other hand, member of Parliament, Abboud Al-Issawi, affirmed that the Iraqi political blocs gave Prime Minister-designate Muhammad Tawfiq Allawi the authority to choose his government ministers freely.
The Iraqi News Agency (INA) quoted Al-Issawi as saying that "the political blocs gave Allawi the authority to choose his government cabinet freely, to be chosen according to his experience and communication with independent and impartial personalities."
Al-Issawi said, “The MPs asked several questions for Allawi regarding the prestige of the state and security, as well as the rights of the martyrs of the demonstrations and the wounded, in addition to economic issues, and the fight against rampant corruption, as well as the mechanism for choosing the ministerial cabinet.”
He pointed out that «Allawi also promised to open offices in the governorates that represent the Prime Minister’s Office, in order to follow the role of the provinces and state departments and communicate with demonstrators and groups of society from tribes, academics and unions, to follow the concerns of people», noting that «there is an intention to involve representatives of the demonstrators in these offices To follow up on work and the extent of implementation of the government program ».
For his part, leader of the National Coalition, former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, called yesterday, the national political forces and peaceful demonstrators to pay attention and stop what he called "a conspiracy to abort the issue of early elections."
Allawi said, in a tweet on the social networking site «Twitter», that «internal and regional parties have prepared the necessary plans to maintain the current conditions, and abort the demands of the masses to hold early elections». He added: "I invite the national political forces and the peaceful mass mobilization to pay attention and stop this new conspiracy."
Iyad Allawi: Parties have prepared plans to abort the holding of early elections in Iraq.