Iraq – Al-Sadr postpones demonstrations of his supporters… and “al Sadr’s minister” says coordination framework is playing with fire

Location: Baghdad, Iraq

Language: Arabic

Duration: 00:04:52

Voice: Natural

Source: A24 Baghdad

Restriction: A24 subscribers

Date: 16/08/2022

Storyline:

The leader of the Sadrist movement in Iraq, Muqtada al-Sadr, announced, on Tuesday, the postponement of their demonstration, which was scheduled for next Saturday, “until further notice.” This announcement came at a time when the political crisis escalated during the past two weeks due to the open sit-in of Sadr’s supporters, which began inside the parliament and then moved to the Green Zone in central Baghdad. Meanwhile, supporters of the coordination framework, the main opponent of al-Sadr, began a sit-in last Friday outside the Green Zone, to demand the “formation of a national service government.”

Saleh Muhammad al-Iraqi, known as “Minister of al-Sadr,” attacked some parties to the coordination framework, amid growing fears of armed clashes between supporters of the two Shiite poles in light of the exacerbation of the political crisis in Iraq. Al-Sadr’s minister called on the blocs affiliated with the framework, in reference to the “State of Law coalition”, “Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq” and the “National Wisdom Movement”, to stop what he described as the “Trinity Framework”, saying that the framework is playing with fire and leading to political disagreements and a civil war, which serves their interest, he said. The minister indicated that the decision of the coordination framework to mobilize demonstrators against the Sadrist demonstrators aims to stir up sedition, stressing that the Sadrist movement’s demonstrations came to confront the corrupt.

Shot list:

Soundbite (Salah Boshi – Political Analyst):

“Political maneuvering between the political forces, the Sadrist movement and the framework, is considered a political race or political knowledge. I think that Sadr’s supporters are pressing the political process to justify and make the reform project adopted by the Sadrist movement successful. On the other hand, the political force in the framework is different from Al-Sadr, who sets the next policy for the next stage. Today, I believe that the Sadrist movement is the one who determines the demands adopted by the reform project at this stage, and therefore the political forces in the coordinating framework must listen and analyze what is issued by the Sadrist movement.”

Soundbite (Ali Abed Sahib – Political Analyst):

“Parties seek what serves their interests away from patriotism and altruism. Therefore, today we are in a very critical stage. The coming days may be worse than the previous days as the parties began to disrespect each other away from the language of dialogue. The case of Iraq is alarming. Even solutions have become almost impossible amid this stick to decisions, opinions and such demands, especially since the movement owns the land and the public. We have multiple options, but none of them will be peaceful.”