:quality(70):focal(2588x1407:2598x1417)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/MMFQWJ7VK7XYYJQKK3ESTHGEPA.jpg)
:quality(70)/s3.amazonaws.com/arc-authors/irishtimes/0eb3e327-5942-4e5d-b411-e46e6f139e09.png)
Iraq’s most powerful politician, Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr heads a nationalist, reformist alliance which won the largest number of seats in last October’s parliamentary election.
His efforts to form a majority government were blocked by the pro-Iranian Shia Coordination Framework, which insists on adherence to the US-installed consensus government of main factions.
In response, he ordered Sadrist deputies to resign and supporters to occupy parliament, preventing his rivals from establishing a government and deepening the rift between rival Shia groups.
Sadr (48), the mercurial scion of a revered Shia clerical family, has no rank in the Shia clerical hierarchy, but has two million supporters in Baghdad’s poor Sadr city suburb and the underprivileged south. His father and father-in-law were executed for plotting to oust the secular Baathist regime before its 2003 overthrow by the US.
:quality(70):focal(2105x2055:2115x2065)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/B4O2LIG5A4ZDTNGWAYS7LC4FCM.jpg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/MWEMFOHFPRGHHOCHBARZA2IVXA.JPG)
:quality(70):focal(3110x695:3120x705)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/T3W3LUD7FZCLBJBJTWMGVORTCU.jpg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/S4OOJXEBK6UXQY2UMPYWP7UUDY.jpg)
Born and bred during Baathist rule, Sadr remained in Iraq — unlike rivals who took refuge in Iran. Sadr entered politics at the age of 29 by forming the Mahdi Army to resist the US occupation. Exiled pro-Iranian figures returned to Iraq under US protection and assumed dominant roles in governance. Iraq slipped into economic decline despite billions of dollars of income from oil exports.
In October 2019, millions of Iraqis revolted against their rulers, accusing them of mismanagement and rampant corruption. They demanded an end to Iranian and US interference in Iraqi affairs. They also called for an end to the sectarian system, under which the president must be a Kurd, the prime minister a Shia, and the assembly speaker a Sunni, and fixes quotas for other posts.
As leaders of the sole reformist bloc, Sadrists benefited from the uprising by increasing their 2021 parliamentary representation by 50 per cent over the 2018 election result, while Iran-backed Shia blocs lost votes.
Sadr has previously renounced politics before returning to the fray, but this “definitive withdrawal” has a destabilising external dimension. His move was precipitated by the resignation of Iran-based Grand Ayatollah Kadhim Al-Haeri, the Sadrists’ spiritual leader who surprisingly urged them to accept guidance from Iran’s supreme Guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Sadr has blamed Iranian pressure for the sudden shift, as Iraq-born Haeri was a student of Sadr’s learned uncle and long acted as Sadr’s mentor.
Former Iraqi senior official Entifah Qanbar tweeted that Iran has staged a coup against Haeri and Sadr and mounted an attempt transfer the “Shia centre of gravity” from the Iraqi Shia holy city of Najaf, “the Vatican of the Shia,” to Iran’s Qom, the hub of Shia scholarship.
Qanbar told the BBC this could ignite an intra-Shia religious war and pit rich against poor. Sadr is seen as the champion of the poor while his rivals are accused of enriching themselves at Iraq’s expense.