BAGHDAD – The political bloc led by the Shiite leader Muqtada al Sadr announced victory in the early parliamentary elections that took place in Iraq two days ago. This was stated by Al Sadr himself in a televised speech. “This is the day of the Iraqi people, it is the day of victory against corruption, terrorism, militias, poverty, injustice and slavery”.
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According to the official news agency Ina, the Sadrist parties would have obtained a relative majority of seats in parliament, with 73 seats out of 329. The count has not yet been concluded, but the turnout was very low: it stopped at 41 per cent, down compared to elections in 2018, when the turnout was 44.5 percent.
The Sadrist movement during the summer had initially announced a boycott of the vote, and then retraced its steps. The charismatic figure of the “populist” Al Sadr, sworn enemy of the United States, actually represents a more welcome alternative to the West than the pro-Iranian extremists, such as the Al Fatah coalition of Hadi al Amiri, which gathers representatives of Iranian-backed militias held responsible for attacks on US-led international coalition forces and structures.
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Al Sadr has long since distanced himself from more pro-Iranian movements and praised the Prime Minister’s dialogue initiatives Mustafa Al Kadhimi, while Sadrist representatives of the Iraqi government recently had meetings with several Western diplomats.
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