Iraq
Influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr makes a speech from his house in Najaf, Iraq on August 30, 2022. Photo: Anmar Khalil/AP
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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Friday rejected a formal call from President Abdul Latif Rashid to reverse his decision to boycott upcoming legislative elections.
“I did not participate and will not participate with the corrupt, the insolent, and the enemies of the people,” Sadr said, noting that many people cast ballots in previous votes to elect “thieves of money that has not been recovered to this day.”
In March, he announced that his movement would boycott the 2025 elections in protest of corruption.
Rashid issued a letter on Wednesday, published by state media on Friday, urging the influential cleric and his National Shiite Movement to rejoin political life through the November 11 elections.
“We affirm that this movement and all that will result from it will remain incomplete if the National Shiite Movement does not participate in the elections and contribute effectively to parliamentary life and support state institutions,” read the letter. “We call upon you, your eminence, to reverse the decision not to participate.”
“The opportunity for correction and rectification still exists, awaiting the efforts of those who are good,” the presidential letter added.
Local media have speculated that Sadr's camp was advocating for postponing the elections and forming an emergency government - claims Sadr denied in his response on Friday.
The Sadrists emerged as the top force in Iraq’s October 2021 parliamentary elections, securing 73 seats in the 329-member Iraqi legislature. However, they failed in their effort to establish a “national majority” government together with Sunni Arab and Kurdish allies.
The rival Shiite-led Coordination Framework then insisted on the post-2003 norm of establishing a consensus government. The deadlock ultimately prompted the Sadrist lawmakers to resign en masse.
Sadr last May renamed his movement the National Shiite Movement, a move that was widely interpreted as a precursor to re-entering politics.
In mid-February, Sadr urged his supporters to update their voter registration records. However, a former Sadrist lawmaker, Rafi Abduljabbar Azzawi, told Rudaw at the time that the cleric’s request “does not necessarily indicate a shift in his stance on participating in Iraq’s upcoming elections, but rather to urge Iraqis to take a stand in the critical period ahead.”
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