SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Powerful Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has directed his supporters to postpone Saturday’s August, 20 secluded million-man march in Baghdad.
Earlier on Sunday Sadr called on his supporters from all Iraqi provinces to join a million-man march in Baghdad, he set Aug, 20 to hold the march in the Capital’s downtown, saying it was to stand against corrupt parties.
Surprisingly, Sadr in a statement on Tuesday released on his Twitter account has directed his supporters to postpone Saturday’s march until further notice, adding that “the blood of Iraqis is more precious than anything else”.
The Sadrist movement which emerged as the major winner of the latest Iraq’s parliamentary election which was held in Oct. 2021, has formally withdrawn from the parliament last June with 73 seats behind after he failed to form the government with his Kurdish ally the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Sunnis.
Since then, he has chosen to take the streets by inciting his supporters to storm the parliament building, preventing his political opponent, the Shiite coordination framework from a government out of the Sadrists.
Iraq’s political unrest deepened when supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr stormed the legislative building and camped outside of the assembly on July 30. Hampering the MPs to elect the new cabinet and recover from a decade of conflict and economic hardships.
After weeks of storming Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone and holding a sit-in, where the parliament and foreign embassies are located the supporters of Sadrist continue to camp outside the legislative building, refusing to leave until their demands are met. Calling for a snap election and constitutional amendments.
