Iraq's President urges Al-Sadr to end election boycott

Shafaq News/ Iraq’s president has urged influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to reverse his decision to boycott the country’s upcoming elections, scheduled for November 11, 2024.

In a letter delivered on Friday, President Abdul Latif Rashid appealed directly to the leader of the Shiite Patriotic Movement (PSM), to end his long-standing political withdrawal, “We, like other leaders of the country, are acutely aware of the political vacuum left by the withdrawal of the Sadrist bloc’s lawmakers from the fifth parliamentary cycle,” Rashid wrote, referring to Al-Sadr’s 2022 exit from Parliament. “The time has come for the PSM to resume its political role. Parliament remains the true arena for correcting the flaws that have affected the political process.”

Al-Sadr, a key player in Iraq’s post-2003 political landscape, announced last month that he would not participate in the next elections, citing entrenched corruption and warning that Iraq was “living its final breaths.” His political exit in June 2022 included the mass resignation of all 73 Sadrist lawmakers, a move he said was necessary to avoid complicity with a corrupt system.

Rashid, however, emphasized that the political process in Iraq “will remain incomplete,” in the absence of Al-Sadr’s movement.

“We call on you to reverse the decision not to participate. Iraq awaits the efforts of all sincere patriots to rebuild the nation. Your people long for a parliament that represents them and a government that meets their needs.”

In a veiled warning, the president added that those who once held power under the former regime, or those with vested interests in Iraq’s instability, were waiting for opportunities to reclaim influence. “There is no substitute for completing the project you and your partners in the political process began after 2003,” he said. “Those loyal to the former regime and those who wish ill upon Iraq are biding their time to recover what they once lost. But the opportunity for correction and reform still exists—it awaits the hands of the righteous.”