Muqtada al-Sadr insists on full election boycott
Shafaq News - Najaf
Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of Iraq’s Patriotic Shiite Movement (PSM), on Sunday dismissed calls from Shiite parties to join the parliamentary elections, reaffirming his movement’s complete boycott of the vote.
The 2025 parliamentary elections in Iraq began today with a special vote involving more than 1.3 million Iraqis, including personnel from the security, defense, and service sectors, as well as internally displaced persons (IDPs). The general vote will follow on Tuesday, with around 20 million set to participate.
“By voting for the experienced, we entrench the corrupt and strengthen their dominance,” al-Sadr posted on X, rejecting the idea of what he described as repelling the corrupt with greater corruption. “All of you are responsible, including the security forces.”
— مقتدى السيد محمد الصدر (@Mu_AlSadr) November 9, 2025
Al-Sadr had previously withdrawn his movement from the elections, noting it would not take part in a process “tainted by corruption” or form alliances with what he calls corrupt forces. He regularly uses the term “corrupted” to describe Iraq’s political figures.
In the 2021 parliamentary elections, his bloc won 73 of 329 seats, becoming the largest in parliament, before he later instructed his lawmakers to resign, citing “corruption” once again.
Read more: Iraq’s 2025 poll: +21M voters, new law, fading monitors, and fierce bloc rivalries
