Iraqi populist leader Sadr's followers set up for sit-in at Parliament
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BAGHDAD • Supporters of Iraqi populist leader Moqtada al-Sadr erected tents and prepared for an open-ended sit-in at Iraq's Parliament yesterday, in a move that could prolong political deadlock or plunge the country into fresh violence.
Thousands of the Shi'a Muslim cleric's loyalists stormed into the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad on Saturday, taking over the empty Parliament building for a second time in a week as his Shi'a rivals, most of them close to Iran, try to form a government.
"We're staying until our demands are met. And we have many demands," a member of Mr Sadr's political team told Reuters by phone, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to give statements to media.
Mr Sadr's social-political Sadrist Movement is demanding that Parliament be dissolved and new elections be held and that federal judges be replaced, the Sadrist official said.
The Sadrist Movement came first in an October election last year as the largest party in Parliament, making up around a quarter of its 329 members.
Iran-aligned parties suffered heavy losses at the polls, with the exception of former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, an arch rival of Mr Sadr.
Mr Sadr failed to form a government free of those parties, however, beset by just enough opposition in Parliament and federal court rulings that stopped him getting his choice of president and prime minister.
He withdrew his lawmakers from Parliament in protests and has since used his masses of mostly impoverished Shi'a followers to agitate through street protests.
REUTERS
