Iraq: Sadr bans Movement's MPs from returning to Parliament

The leader of Iraq’s Sadrist Movement, Muqtada Al-Sadr, stressed yesterday that the return of his Movement’s MPs to the House of Representatives is “absolutely forbidden, under any pretext”.

Al-Sadr expects Sadrist MPs’ withdrawal from the House of Representatives to result in the dissolution of the legislative body, according to a statement attributed to him and published on Twitter by Saleh Muhammad Al-Iraqi, who is known to be close to Al-Sadr and identifies himself on the social networking website as “the leader’s minister”.

The Sadrist MPs’ withdrawal should “block all ways to agreeing with the so-called Coordination Framework, with whom I do not agree at all,” the Shia leader added in the statement.

The Coordination Framework is an Iran-backed coalition of Shia parties that has been recently exchanging accusations with Sadrists.

According to Sadr, “The return of the [Sadrist] bloc to the House of Representatives makes it possible … to reach … consensus [with the Coalition Framework], and this is forbidden for us. Their return will lead a political deadlock once again,” the statement read.

In reference to the consensus government that the Coordination Framework failed to form, Sadr accused them of being corrupt for they “reject a national majority government that is neither eastern nor western”.

He reiterated his rejection for the consensus government that the Coordination Framework tried to form, saying that such government would use political quotas in distributing political power and resources.

He called on the Sadrist movement’s Sunni and Kurdish allies to withdraw from the Parliament.

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