The fate of Adel Abdelmahdi as prime minister of Iraq is up in the air. The head of State, Barham Salih, is trying to meet the prime minister, the president of the Parliament and the main political leaders to find a political solution that will put an end to the protests since the beginning of the month rocking the country. Of time, the appointment for this Wednesday has been cancelled. But after the rejection of Abdelmahdi to call early elections, his exsocio of Government, Muqtada al-Sadr sought the support of the second force in parliament to evict you. It remains to be seen who achieve a figure of consensus that satisfies both Iran and the demonstrators.
“Since you refuse [to hold elections], I will cooperate with Hadi al-Ameri to take, to change the electoral commission and the electoral law, and seek agreement to amend the Constitution,” snapped Al-Sadr, the prime minister, echoing the popular demands. Al Ameri said she is willing to “cooperate in the interest of iraqis”.
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Al Ameri is the leader of Fatah, the second block with the most votes in last year’s elections, in which Sairun, the alliance of Revolutionary for the Reform of Al-Sadr, was in first place but with an insufficient number of seats to govern alone. The designation of Abdelmahdi was a covenant between the two with the supervision of Iran. But the unexpected outbreak of popular has caught everyone by surprise and has put up against the ropes, both the Government and its backers in iran. Al-Sadr, an astute politician who leads the only popular movement genuinely iraqi, did not take long to leave the Cabinet. He has now joined the protest in Najaf, a city 160 kilometers south of Baghdad.
“The way out is not easy,” says a european diplomatic that begins to doubt that Abdelmahdi is going to go soon. “Although Al-Sadr has aligned with the protesters calling for the resignation of the prime minister and new elections, this requires the agreement of two-blocks, winners, and neither Fatah nor Iran want to go to the polls,” he says. That alliance also seems complicated after the fire in several cities in the south of dozens of venues of groups associated with Fatah, including the militia proiraníes of the Forces of Popular Mobilization, which observers have attributed to a settling of accounts between these and the sadristas.
analysts cross bets on what they are negotiating behind the scenes, the heads of rows of the main parliamentary groups and their backers in iran. But still waiting for a political solution, there are still dead and among the protesters there is a growing sense antiiraní, as the most responsible of the repression of “mercenaries for Iran” when it is not directly to “members of the Revolutionary Guard” of that country.
“If the Government had responded to the demands in the first days of October, we would not have come to this situation; but the violent repression of protesters waved still more the spirits and the claims have increased,” says the political consultant Hiwa Osman.
A protester injured is rushed to hospital during the protest anti-government in Baghdad, on Tuesday. Khalid Mohammed AP
A month and three hundred dead later, gathered in the Tahrir square of Baghdad and other cities in the south of the country feel empowered. After overcoming the Saturday night the ultimatum to evict them by force, have been left out for the second night in a row the curfew imposed on Monday in the capital. In addition, they have transformed the plaza into a party which is attended by even parents with small children and couples in love. They feel that they are making history.
To claim jobs and stop the corruption, it went on to ask the dismissal of the Government and, in this second round of protests, which began last Friday, it calls for a complete revision of the system introduced in 2003 under u.s. occupation, the responsibility for having encouraged sectarianism. That’s why in the streets calling for “the fall of the regime”, as claimed egyptians, yemenis or syrians during the ill-fated spring of 2011. The iraqis EE. UU. them rid of their dictator, but they feel that now you have hundreds of small dictators in the form of ministers, deputies and other high positions.
The Parliament, with the high wages of its 329 deputies and its annuities, it is one of the main objects of wrath. Young and old, educated or not, want that to dissolve, to a transitional Government under UN supervision, a reform of the Constitution and a new electoral law to establish a presidential system with a Camera is much more reduced. “A deputy for every million inhabitants as much”, he proposes a protester. But above all, they wish to end the corruption of their rulers, and that the benefits of being the third largest exporter of oil to see in the education, healthcare and basic services such as drinking water and electricity still in short supply.
The problem, and the novelty, is that “the demonstrators have no leader,” explains the analyst Hisham al-Hashemi. That is precisely the difference with protests of a similar nature have been happening since 2011. But if in the past the political leaders came to arrangements (or were co-opted by the Government of the day), without an interlocutor, of course that is unfeasible. In addition, now the engine of the protests are young people who have exploited sick and tired of broken promises.
And what they are going to achieve something? “Let’s hope that a change, at least of the Cabinet,” says Al Hashemi. Perhaps it is already too late for that to be satisfying to the demonstrators. Osman suggests, for its part, the need for a transition Government to commit itself to the drafting of a new electoral law, fight against corruption seriously and to call for new elections. “A slight pressure on the part of the maryaiya [the religious authority shi’a], the UN and the international community can help”, estimated by ruling Iran. For the moment, the measures announced by the Government and by Parliament, have been branded as “little and late” by the outraged.
The play of Muqtada
The cleric and politician Muqtada al-Sadr, the son and nephew of two venerable ayatollahs killed by Saddam Hussein, has returned to show his usual guile. But in the end did not send its supporters to Tahrir square last Friday as it had announced, has left the Government that he helped form and supported the protests from fuerto, trying to get out of the diana in which the protesters have made all the political groups. He, unlike other leaders, he has no public office, but his influence is undeniable.
“he has Not tried to take the lead, but that it has been presented as a protector of the protest and tries to keep the pressure on the Government to reform” confirms the analyst Hiwa Osman. “It is aware that there is a strong feeling antiiraní and antipartidos among the protesters, so that has encouraged the participation of their followers in a personal capacity and not as members of his movement”, he adds.
“The demonstrators need their support more than he of the protesters; their number is like barely 3 % of their followers,” notes for its part, Hisham al-Hashemi, who recalls that it is “popularity, money and contacts.”
