Al-Sadr invites independent MPs to join his majoritarian government

Shafaq News/ The leader of the Sadrist movement, Muqtada al-Sadr, invited the independent lawmakers to take part in the majoritarian cabinet he has been lobbying for in a long letter he shared on Monday.

The maverick leader said that the failure of the political parties in the post-2003 era shrunk the size of the status quo political blocs and spawned many independent lawmakers, particularly in the Shiite and southern Iraqi communities.

"The succession of consensus governments that took over the country did not benefit Iraq and the Iraqis. It is safe to say that it clobbered the country year after year," he said, "the reason behind their failure was consensus, cake-sharing, and whatsoever."

"During the last political process, we tried to refrain from sharing the cake with them, but it did not work. Today, we believe that we need to escape the bottleneck of consensus to the space of majority, the bottleneck of sectarianism to the space of nationalism," he continued, "by which I mean forming a national majority government."

"It is an experience we should engage in order to test it. Hopefully, it is the beginning of the rise from the bitter reality our beloved country is going through, and a challenge to the external pressure exerted against our country."

Al-Sadr urged the independent lawmakers to "take a stance of glory, honor, and dignity to save the country and rid it from the remnants of corruption, terrorism, invasion, normalization, and degradation by endorsing the parliamentary session called to elect a new president of the republic and abstain from blocking it by the blocking one-third engendered by coaxing and intimidation."

"We need a courageous stand from you. If you do not trust me or the Sadrist bloc, we will grant you an area to run the country if you manage to organize your ranks and averted inducements and threats."

The Sadrist leader said that his sole purpose from seeking a majoritarian government is achieving reform, deeming it "a better political attempt from violence and extremist protests that damaged the country."

The populist Shiite cleric warned, "some parties are attempting to drag the country into the furnace of war, conflicts, and destruction of the honest democratic process."

"Those who hear what we said and do not support us, should not censure us later or unleash accusations against us later," he concluded.