Aide to Grand Ayatollah Sistani says new Iraqi government is sub-standard

25 December, 2010 12:14

Aide to Grand Ayatollah Sistani says new Iraqi government is sub-standard

An aide to Iraq’s top Shiite Muslim cleric slammed the country’s political blocs on Friday for forming a government that is “not up to the required standards.”

Sheikh Abdel-Mahdi al-Karbalaei, a confidant of influential Shiite spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said that the new cabinet is “below the standards” Iraqi citizens had hoped for and suggested it could prove to Â be weaker than the previous government.

“We do not want to leave the people in a state of frustration, but we are concerned that such standards will have negative effects on the ministries’ performance,” al-Karbalaei told thousands of peopel attending a Friday sermon in Imam Hussein mosque in Karbala.