The sit-in of his supporters in the Iraqi parliament is a message to his rivals that he cannot be excluded from forming the government
Muqtada al-Sadr rebelled against the existing political situation
An aerial view of Muqtada al-Sadr's supporters as they gather in Nasiriyah, Dhi Qar Governorate, southern Iraq.
AFP
Sadr's supporters sit in the Iraqi parliament.
EPA
picture
On July 30, a noisy crowd demolished the concrete slab wall that surrounded the Green Zone in Baghdad.
For the second time this week, thousands of demonstrators flock to organized areas and pass near embassies and government offices and take “selfie” pictures of themselves with the soldiers who were asked not to clash with them.
attack on parliament
Without encountering little resistance, they continued their way to the Iraqi parliament, and sat on the seats of parliament, singing slogans in support of the leader of the Sadrist movement, Muqtada al-Sadr.
Outside, trucks carrying supplies needed to stay there for several days began arriving.
"Muqtada al-Sadr rejects this parliament, because the parties in it are corrupt and they also violate the law," said one of the demonstrators, Ahmed Abdel-Jalil, from the poor city of Sadr.
These scenes in Baghdad remind us of what happened on January 6, 2021, of a rebellion in the US Capitol.
Iraqi demonstrators flocked into the Green Zone on 27 July, on the orders of their leader al-Sadr.
With the sit-in in Parliament, al-Sadr's supporters are seeking to overthrow a political authority they say colluded against them, despite their victory in the elections that took place last October.
There is always a tension in the process of forming a government in Iraq that lasts for several months.
But the current crisis came after elections that were unprecedented in terms of the length of time and the scale of the crisis, given the unusual rift in the Shiite political establishment.
Last June, al-Sadr ordered his bloc to resign from parliament after failing to form a majority government.
Fear of escalation
With the fear of an escalation in the capital, al-Sadr ordered his followers not to return to their homes, and tension rose through fiery tweets.
Al-Sadr tweeted on July 31, calling for more Iraqis to join the demonstrators, and called for “a fundamental change in the political system.” On August 3, he called in a televised speech to dissolve parliament and hold early elections.
What happened was a calculated move by al-Sadr, who failed to garner sufficient support in Parliament to appoint the next prime minister, and for this he decided to take the battle to the street.
"He is very chested in playing his cards and now he is trying to perform in the street, and he wants to be the strongest Shiite politician," said Marcin Al-Shammari, a researcher at the Middle East Initiative at Harvard Kennedy University, in response to questions from Foreign Policy.
For several days the country appeared to be teetering on the edge of a precipice, as Iraqis worried that this unrest could quickly develop into an armed conflict between the Sadrists and the Coordination Framework, a group of Shiite parties formed after the recent elections to thwart al-Sadr's attempts to form a majority government.
Bridges, roads, as well as shops were closed and the capital braced for possible violence between the two well-armed rivals.
A message to competitors
But the conflict could lead to the collapse of the political system in place since the US invasion and the undermining of the regime of former President Saddam Hussein in 2003. Al-Sadr's rebellion was a message to his rivals that he was still a powerful figure who could not be excluded from government formation negotiations, although he abandoned the process political.
The Coordination Framework, or Coordination, as it is locally called, staged a counter-demonstration.
But so far no red lines have been crossed, as all parties are still led by a common understanding that the priority is to maintain the status quo.
"No one wants violence because everyone knows that in the end the problem will be solved without force and violence," said one of the officials from the coordination framework.
Contrary to the image that al-Sadr tried to spread, in reality it is intricately intertwined with the regime he wants to change.
Alliance with Sunnis and Kurds
In the October elections, the Sadrists won the majority in the parliamentary elections, achieving 73 seats out of 329. They called for major reforms, and also benefited from changes in the electoral law.
Al-Sadr tried to use his success in the elections to tighten his grip on the state.
He broke with the previous habit of sharing power with Shiite rivals.
He ignored the accusations against him that he was working to divide the Shiites, and formed a tripartite alliance with the Sunnis and the Kurds.
After nine months of violent political struggle, he failed to secure two-thirds of the seats in parliament to form a majority government and ordered his deputies to resign.
The coordination framework has now become the largest bloc in Parliament, which considered al-Sadr's withdrawal a strategic mistake and an appropriate form of the framework for appointing the prime minister they desired.
But the choice of the coordinating framework, Muhammad Shia al-Sudani, a former minister in a previous government headed by Nouri al-Maliki, prompted al-Sadr to revolt and send his supporters to Parliament.
The coordinating framework consists of competing Shiite parties, including those allied with Iran and former Prime Minister Maliki, who has been an enemy of Sadr since ordering his government to fight Sadr's forces in 2008. Since this year, Maliki and Sadr have been vying for control of the state, each using different mechanisms to win. Shiites vote.
Al-Kazemi is neutral
During everything that was happening in Baghdad, Al-Kazemi did not interfere to remove the Sadrists from the Green Zone, and when the demonstrators stormed the parliament, Al-Kazemi appealed to them to maintain calm and warned of the dangerous consequences of "sedition", but he ordered the security forces to protect the public.
Al-Kazemi, the former Iraqi intelligence chief, did not have any party base, and he had relations with the United States, and his relationship with the coordination framework parties allied with Iran is very tense, as well as their armed wings.
He has long ordered the arrests of Iran-aligned militiamen on charges of trying to kill Iraqi critics or targeting US forces stationed in Iraq.
But the paralysis now occurring in the political process seems likely to make Maliki's caretaker government stay in power for much longer.
• These scenes in Baghdad remind us of what happened on January 6, 2021, of a rebellion in the US Capitol. Iraqi protesters flocked into the Green Zone on 27 July, on the orders of their leader al-Sadr after he failed to seize power through constitutional means.
• The internal conflict could lead to the collapse of the existing political system since the US invasion and the undermining of the regime of former President Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Simona Fultin ■ is an American journalist based in Baghdad
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