Muqtada Al-Sadr sets deadline for formation of new government

The Leader of the Sadr faction has given more than a month time to groups that prevent the Iraqi parliament from holding a presidential election to form a national majority government without it.

He said in a message on his Twitter account this evening (Thursday 31 Mar 2022) that he and his entourage were the largest winner in the October 10 parliamentary elections, marking an unprecedented victory and later becoming the largest Shia faction or coalition.

The Leader of Sadr’s movement continued his message by emphasizing that he was the first person who was able to form the largest national faction, “Save the Homeland Alliance”, and nominated as a universally accepted candidate (Seyyed Mohammad Jafar Sadr) for the post of Prime Minister of Iraq and noted that he would not give up on this issue.

Stating that the mentioned alliances had annoyed many people and as a result they tried to obstruct and still do, Al-Sadr said that in order for Iraq not to be left without a government and not to worsen the security, economic, service and other conditions, he called on the currents that broke the quorum to prevent the Iraqi parliament from convening to elect a new president, to negotiate with all factions without exception to form a national majority government without Sadr movement during the first day of the holy Month of Ramadhan to the ninth of Shawwal.

While emphasizing that the members of this faction do not have the right to have any positive or negative interference in the negotiation process of the mentioned factions, pointed out that by doing so, he has done his duty. It should be noted that the Sadr Movement last Wednesday, together with the Kurdistan Democratic Party led by Massoud Barzani and the ruling Sunni ally led by Mohammad Al-Halbousi and Khamis Al-Khanjar, formed a new coalition “Save the Homeland Alliance”.

Since then, the Iraqi House of Representatives has convened twice, on Saturday and Wednesday this week, with the aim of electing a new president, followed by the introduction of a new prime minister. However, the Sadr faction and its allies both failed in this endeavor because the number of deputies present in none of the two sessions reached the required quorum, ie two-thirds of the total of 329 members of parliament.