Iraq’s powerful Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr has announced he is quitting political life and closing his political offices in a move that inflamed tensions and prompted protests by his supporters.
Gunfire erupted in Baghdad’s Green Zone. Security forces used tear gas canisters to disperse al-Sadr sympathizers who were converging in the area on Monday. According to the Associated Press news agencies and Reuters news agencies, at least 10 people were killed.
Al-Sadr’s statement, published on Twitter, came after months of protests by supporters backing his call for new elections and for the dissolution of the Iraqi parliament, which has seen 10 months of deadlock – representing the longest Iraq has gone without a government.
“I hereby announce my final withdrawal,” al-Sadr said.
He added that “all the institutions” linked to his Sadrist Movement will be closed, except the mausoleum of his father, assassinated in 1999, and other heritage facilities.
The head of the Sadrist parliamentary bloc Hassan Al-Athary announced in a Facebook post later on Monday that al-Sadr began a hunger strike “until the violence and use of weapons” end.
The announcement was quickly met with escalation from al-Sadr’s supporters, who stormed the presidential palace, a ceremonial building inside the fortified Green Zone of government buildings.
Many climbed down the cement barriers and smashed through the gates. Many rushed to the lavish salons, marbled halls, and other areas of the building that were a meeting point for foreign dignitaries as well as heads of state from Iraq.
Supporters, who have gathered at a sit-in since the end of July near the Iraqi parliament, also approached a counter-protest held by al-Sadr’s Shia rivals. Both sides hurled rocks at one another.
Protesters also blocked access to Umm Qasr port, which is located near Basra in the south. This brought down operations by 50%, Reuters reported.
Muqtada al Sadr, an influential leader of the Shia Iraqi Shia, has announced his resignation from politics. This could further fuel tensions in Iraq.
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National curfew
Iraq’s army declared a nationwide, indefinite curfew that went into effect at 7pm (16:00 GMT) on Monday.
“The security forces affirm their responsibility to protect government institutions, international missions, public and private properties,” a military statement said.
Al-Sadr made a scathing attack on his political opponents, claiming that they had not listened when he called for reform.
Al-Sadr resigned from politics and government in the recent past and also disbanded loyal militias. However, he retains considerable influence over state institutions. He also controls a paramilitary force with thousands of members.
After similar announcements, he has returned to politics many times. However, the current political impasse in Iraq seems more difficult to resolve than previous periods.
Hamzeh Hadad from the European Council on Foreign Relations questioned the motivation behind al-Sadr’s move.
“It’s not quite clear what is he resigning from. Is he asking other members of his party who hold bureaucratic posts in the state to resign from? That’s to be seen,” Hadad told Al Jazeera.
“He has done this many times and usually when he does claim to be withdrawing or resigning from the political system, it’s usually before elections and he always ends up backtracking. So, the question again here is ‘Will he backtrack as well?’”
Monday’s announcement came two days after al-Sadr said “all parties”, including his own, should give up government positions in order to help resolve the months-long political crisis, while calling on those who “have been part of the political process” since the United States-led invasion of the country in 2003 to “no longer participate”.
Al-Sadr’s party, the Sadrist Movement, won the most seats in an October 2021 election, but he ordered his legislators to resign en masse in June after he failed to form a government of his choosing, which would have excluded powerful Shia rivals close to Iran.
The Iranian-backed Shia opposition, the Coordination Framework alliance, took the initiative in parliament.
Al-Sadr’s supporters stormed the parliament building in late July and stopped his rivals from appointing a new president and prime minister.
Mustafa al-Kadhimi, al-Sadr’s ally who remains Iraq’s caretaker prime minister, said he suspended cabinet meetings until further notice after Sadrist protesters stormed the government headquarters on Monday.
Al-Kadhimi also directed an “urgent investigation” into Monday’s events and stressed that the use of live ammunition by security forces against protesters is “strictly prohibited”, Iraq’s state news agency INA reported.
Political deadlock
Reporting from Baghdad, Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud Abdelwahed said more al-Sadr supporters joined those staging the sit-in at parliament, adding al-Sadr’s statements appeared to seek to distance himself from any potential unrest.
“This resignation comes at a time that the political crisis in Iraq has reached an elevated stage,” said Abdelwahed. “It can be read in terms of disappointment, frustration by the Sadrist movements. But on the other hand it could be also read as an attempt to try to put more pressure on his rivals”.
He added the political deadlock has halted services that are “impacting the regular citizens”.
Protests last week spread to the country’s Supreme Judicial Council, the country’s top administrative judicial authority, as al-Sadr called on the judiciary to dissolve parliament. The council stated at the time that it didn’t have the authority to dissolve Parliament.
Iraq’s Supreme Federal Court is meeting on Tuesday to decide on whether parliament will be dissolved, although Farhad Alaaldin, the chairman of the Iraq Advisory Council, told Al Jazeera that the Iraqi constitution says it is “up to the parliament to dissolve itself”.
He said that the court proceedings could be delayed if protests escalate.
Alaaldin stated that it was unlikely that al-Sadr would leave Iraqi politics permanently. He has already announced his resignation from politics before, but he was forced to rescind his decision.
“He wants to see Iraq in a way that he’s seeing it and he’s been working systematically since 2010, or you can say 2006, onward,” he said. “I don’t believe that he’s going to throw away everything that you’ve worked for for the past 18 years just on a tweet.
“He has a mission and he has a plan, and he thinks he has the way to make it into a different regime where he would be the dominant force.”
Iraq has struggled to recover since the defeat of the armed group ISIL (ISIS) in 2017 because political parties have squabbled over power and the vast oil wealth possessed by Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest producer.
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