13 August 2022; MEMO: During Friday Khotba, an imam close to Shia religious cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr warned of the continuous attempts to divide power in Iraq, news agencies reported.
For the second Friday, Al-Sadr supporters have been camping inside the Green Zone, the compound for government offices and foreign embassies, protesting the premiership nomination by the rival alliance of Iran-backed parties – the Coordination Framework.
"You will not break Iraq as long as Sadr is here," the imam told the crowd from a big stage outside Parliament. "There is no going back from this revolution, and the people will not give up their demands."
After the October elections, Al-Sadr's party emerged as the largest winner but failed to form a government. His MP resigned and called for the dissolution of the newly-elected Parliament instead of passing the task of forming the government to another party.
Al-Sadr's imam reiterated that the protesters are there to draw the features of the next stage for the country, stressing that this would only be through "revolutionary and peaceful democratic early elections."
READ: Sadr calls for parliament to be dissolved within a week
On Twitter, Al-Sadr called for his followers to maintain "peaceful protests" and reiterated that the protests aimed to "fight corruption."
Al-Sadr refuses to deal with current politicians as part of his plan to fight corruption, wanting new faces in the political spectrum.
"Our hands are extended to the people, not to the leaders, in an attempt to reform the corruption," Al-Sadr wrote.
The inter-Shia power struggle has left Iraq in political limbo and exacerbated the economic crisis.
The impasse, now in its 10th month, is the longest in the country since the 2003 US-led invasion that destroyed the country.
