After 8 months of political wrangling and failures to form a new government and choose a president for the country, Iraq today stands at a foggy crossroads with the resignation of the Sadrist bloc’s deputies from parliament, in a move that raised several questions about the immediate political future of Iraq and the expected changes in alliances between parties and blocs.
Last Sunday, the representatives of the Sadrist movement submitted their resignation to the Speaker of Parliament after they received an order from the leader of the movement, Muqtada al-Sadr.
As soon as the resignation took place, speculations and expectations about future scenarios for Iraq surfaced, after many outstanding crises without solutions, exacerbated by the political stalemate as a result of the sectarian quota system and failure of the Iraqi parliament three times in choosing a president and forming a government.
On this, the Iraqi researcher and political historian, Dr. Jawad Al-Baydani, spoke about the repercussions of this step, saying: "I believe that the political blockage will end with this resignation. It seems that there are hidden threads which occurred previously, with evidence that Parliament Speaker Muhammad al-Halbousi signed the resignation as soon as it came to him, Perhaps there were negotiations taking place behind the scenes between the political blocs in light of the alliances made by the Sadrist movement with the al-Halbousi bloc, as well as the Kurdistan Democratic Party.
This context he said, "In light of the Iraqi elections law, any member of the Iraqi parliament when he submits his resignation, the member close to the votes is the one who ascends or replaces him, and this is what will happen. Most of these will be from the coordinating framework as well as the independents, and thus will facilitate formation of the government.
The Sadrist bloc's deputies occupy 73 of the 329 seats in parliament. The Sadrists say that they are the largest bloc in Parliament, and demand the formation of the government according to the principle of the political majority, while the coordination framework, which includes a number of political blocs close to Iran, demands a consensual government that includes all Shiite parties.
After decision of the Federal Supreme Court on May 15 the Sadrist movement had threatened to join the opposition.
Al-Baydani did not rule out the occurrence of protests led by the Sadrist movement, saying: “Maybe the Sadrist movement tends to the opposition, as it is known, its popular base is in poor areas, so any opposition, whether through demonstrations or actions that amount to riots or inflaming the street, will threat the government, as we know, the Sadrist movement had a role in bringing down the government of Adel Abdul-Mahdi.
According to observers, the Sadrist movement's move clearly mixed the cards between the "Sovereignty" alliance and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which will find themselves in need of building a new consensus with the framework and allies.
On this, Al-Baydani said: "The Kurdistan Democratic Party is concerned with only the party's interests.
Moreover, the framework is strategic allies of the democracy on the grounds that the latter follows a nationalist approach, and the framework follows a sectarian approach, both of which are compatible with this framework, and they are both compatible." On the principle of dividing Iraq, both are closer to the other.
As for Al-Halbousi, he can change his alliances, and succeeded in that, we cannot speculate on the results before we see the facts clearly.
The Iraqi historian and political researcher, Dr. Jawad Al-Baydani, tried to extrapolate the course of events in Iraq, saying: "I believe that the coordination framework will not give up the prime ministership, it may make some concessions, but there remains an important thing, will the Sadrist movement be satisfied with this defeat?" For me, I don't consider it a defeat, because the Sadrist movement is not easy and may resort to the street to fall this government as it did before with Adel Abdul-Mahdi's.
A.K
ANHA
