The New York Times: Sadr’s Withdrawal Is A Negotiating Tactic
The New York Times: Sadr’s Withdrawal Is A Negotiating Tactic
06/13/2022 | 5:29 PM
Information / translation.
A report by the New York Times confirmed, on Monday, that after a seven-month stalemate in the formation of the government, the country witnessed a kind of turmoil, a day after the leader of the Sadrist movement, Muqtada al-Sadr, directed members of parliament loyal to him to resign from the seats they won in the October elections of last year.
The report, which was translated by the “Information” agency, stated that “talks to form the government collapsed amid disagreements over who will be the president. Under the Iraqi parliamentary system, which was established after a US-led coalition toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, the president nominates the prime minister, while al-Sadr indicated that by abandoning negotiations he was sacrificing his bloc’s hard-earned gains in last year’s elections so that a government could be formed.
And the report indicated that “it was not immediately clear whether the resignations were just a negotiating tactic on his part or a real break with parliamentary politics, but his withdrawal from parliament and his announcement of the closure of most of al-Sadr’s offices across the country raised fears that he might replace political negotiations with street protests.” destabilizing – something he used before as leverage.”
For his part, Faisal Al-Istrabadi, director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Indiana University, said that “with the Sadrists apparently departing from the actual political process, their history is that when they do not engage in politics, they take to the streets.”
The report indicated that “according to legal experts, the resignations themselves will not lead to elections, and instead, the candidates who obtained the second largest number of votes in October will replace Sadr loyalists in Parliament,” noting that “parliamentary resignations were effective after their acceptance. It was approved by Parliament Speaker Muhammad al-Halbousi and did not require parliamentary approval. finished/ 25 z
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