Iraqi cleric Sayyed Muqtada Al-Sadr has announced that he is quitting political life and closing his political offices across the country.
“I hereby announce my final withdrawal,” Al-Sadr said on Monday.
The statement, published on Twitter, comes amid months of protests by his supporters backing his call for the dissolution of the Iraqi parliament.
In his statement, Al-Sadr attacked his political opponents and said they had not listened to his calls for reform.
Soon after Sadr’s announcement, thousands of Sadr supporters stormed a presidential palace.
The Iraqi Joint Operations Command announced a total lockdown in Baghdad, including civilians and vehicles, that comes into effect from 3:30 PM on Monday.
Following the unrest and after pro-Sadr protesters broke into the government’s headquarters, Iraqi caretaker prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi suspended cabinet sessions until further notice, INA news agency reported.
Many of Al-Sadr’s supporters have been participating in a sit-in outside the Iraqi parliament since the end of July when they stormed the building and stopped Al-Sadr’s rivals from appointing a new prime minister.
Hours before Al-Sadr’s decision, Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Kadhim Husayni al-Haeri, a prominent cleric and one of the Sadr movement’s supporters, announced his decision to resign from the Marjaeya authority of Najaf. Al-Haeri called on his followers to obey the guidelines of the leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei.
Al-Haeri said Sayyed Khamenei is the best and most efficient figure to lead the nation and handle the conflict with the forces of oppression and arrogance during such circumstances, stressing the need to liberate Iraq from any foreign occupation and from any presence of security and military force, especially the American forces.
Al-Sadr’s supporters had won the most seats in October’s parliamentary elections but were unable to form a government.
He ordered his parliamentary bloc to resign en-masse in June, which they promptly did, although this handed the initiative in parliament to his Shia opponents, the Coordination Framework Alliance.
Iraq’s Supreme Federal Court is meeting on Tuesday to decide on whether the parliament will be dissolved.
Al-Sadr has announced his withdrawal from political life back in 2014, only to walk his decision back.
Source: Agencies
