Iraq’s leading Shia cleric Muktada al-Sadr has laid out a roadmap for the country’s political process, which includes the formation of a national majority government and the dismantling of unruly armed groups. Al-Sadr’s party appeared at the fore in the October 10 elections, Xinhua news agency reported. “The only option we have is either a national majority government or a national opposition (in parliament),” he told a televised press conference from the Shia holy city of Najaf. ,
“The world has seen the integrity of the elections and your loss should not be a proposal to end and ruin the democratic process in Iraq,” al-Sadr said in an address to the political parties that lost the elections. The cleric has laid down several conditions in the roadmap, including ‘parties wishing to participate in government must hold their suspected corrupt people accountable’.
as well as dismantling unruly armed groups that must hand over their weapons to the Hashed Shaabi forces, who, under the supervision of outgoing Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, are also commander-in-chief of the Iraqi military. They also stipulated that ‘the parties should sever all their foreign relations in a manner that preserves Iraq’s prestige and independence and does not interfere in the affairs of neighboring countries to save Iraq from wars’.
Early parliamentary elections were held in Iraq on 10 October, which showed that the Sadrist movement led by al-Sadr took the lead with more than 70 seats, while the al-Fateh coalition (Victory) which included some Shia militias of Hashd Shaabi , he secured only 17 seats as compared to 47 seats in the 2018 parliamentary elections.
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