Al-Sadr’s departure from political life threw Iraq into further chaos as his supporters battled rival pro-Iranian groups, Al Jazeera reported.

Violence erupted in the Iraqi capital Baghdad for a second day after Moqtada al-Sadr’s sudden resignation from politics catapulted the country into chaos.

Although he has never been directly in government, al-Sadr remains one of Iraq’s most influential political figures and has a large following.

He announced his retirement from politics on Monday, exacerbating an already tense situation that has left the country without a government for 10 months.

His resignation came two days after he said “all parties, including his own, should give up government posts to help resolve the political crisis”.

In response to al-Sadr’s statement, his supporters stormed the government palace in Baghdad’s green zone. At least 30 people were killed and 700 others were injured in clashes with rival Shiite groups.

But just as he managed to rouse the capital with his initial announcement, al-Sadr’s order on Tuesday for his supporters to leave the Green Zone quickly halted the fighting, underscoring the religious leader’s power over his followers and leaving Iraqis wondering what will happen next in the country’s political crisis. .

Disagreements between Shiite factions

Iraq has been in a political deadlock since last October’s parliamentary elections due to disagreements between Shiite factions over the formation of a government.

Al-Sadr was presented as the main leader after his party won 70 of the total 329 seats in parliament – a significant increase from the 2018 result, when his movement won 54 seats – but still far from a majority.

In June, its politicians resigned in an attempt to break the impasse that made the Coordination Framework, a pro-Iranian and rival Shiite bloc, the largest bloc.

Despite the fact that his party won the majority of seats in the October elections, al-Sadr did not run for the post of prime minister of Iraq.

The reason is relatively simple and based on al-Sadr’s political strategy, Ruba Ali al-Hassani, a doctoral student at Lancaster University and the SEPAD project, told Al Jazeera.

“Sadr’s strategy to gain the support of his followers is his claim to be a reformer. Using this statement, he supported the Tishreen movement [Octombrie] for several months until Iran asked him to stop this support,” al-Hassani said.

“His coup on this particular issue may have cost him a few followers, but for the most part his followers are completely loyal and really believe in his image as a reformer. On this basis, I see Sadr avoiding this position. prime minister to maintain his claims as a reformer. His party is also strategic in its alliances. In the 2018 elections, she joined forces with the Iraqi Communist Party to retain this title of reformer,” says the analyst.

“This is all ironic given that his previous cabinets included Sadrists who occupied ministries such as the Ministry of Health, which is in a very dilapidated state, while he claimed to be reforming,” al-Hassani added.

However, the issues surrounding his politics did not have a significant impact on his popularity.

“By falsely declaring that he would boycott the elections at the end of the summer, he gained leverage because all the politicians seeking legitimacy in the elections needed his participation. It was a smart move, so when Sadr officially ‘re-entered’ the election, we learned that he never actually intended to boycott, as his party was mobilizing in the meantime with a mobile app, voter card registration, etc., said al- Hasani.

Although al-Sadr’s parties won the majority of seats and thus the opportunity to form the next government, he still faces difficult obstacles, especially ideological ones, al-Hassani said.

“With some Iranian-backed parties such as Fatah threatening violence if they don’t get the recount they are demanding, forming a government will be a challenge,” he told Al Jazeera.

“We can expect him to back down”

For Hamzeh Hadad, a visiting researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), his statement is “not very clear”.

“According to the sadistic tradition, we can expect him to back down,” he told AFP. But, “and this is even scarier, you might think he’s giving his followers the green light to do whatever they want by saying he’s no longer responsible for their actions.”

On Saturday, Moqtada Sadr gave “72 hours” to “all parties” in power since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 – including his own – to leave their government posts and make way for “reforms”.

The dispute between the Sadrists and the Coordination Structure has not yet escalated into an armed conflict, but the Hashd al-Shaabi, a former paramilitary group aligned with Tehran and integrated into the Iraqi forces, has announced that it is ready to “defend the institutions of the state.”

Moqtada Sadr, born in 1974, has never ruled. This became known after the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, in particular through the creation of the Mehdi Army, a “resistance” militia against the occupiers.

In his statement released on Monday, he did not, however, mention the Mehdi Army or the Peace Brigades, another armed group under his command, created in 2014 after Mosul was captured by Islamic State (IS) jihadists.