The prime minister, Salih further declares that if the tense situation persists, he would “pack up and leave his job.”
In order to resolve a political deadlock that erupted into violent confrontations this week, leaving scores of people dead and hundreds more injured, Iraqi President Barham Salih advocated early legislative elections on Tuesday.
A main demand of the powerful Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose followers clashed with state security forces during disturbances that began on Monday, has been for early elections, less than a year after the most recent elections.
Salih stated in a speech that “calling new, early elections in accordance with a bipartisan agreement signifies an escape from the suffocating crisis.”
It provides for social and political stability and satisfies the ambitions of the Iraqi people.
Mustafa al-Kadhimi, the prime minister of Iraq, declared on Tuesday that if the volatile political climate in the nation persists, he will “pack up and leave his job.”
After demonstrators burst into the government offices on Monday, the prime minister put a temporary halt to cabinet meetings.
Salih spoke barely hours after Sadr’s followers left Baghdad’s Green Zone after almost 24 hours of fighting with the army and other Shia militias.
After violence broke out on Monday when Sadr’s followers swarmed the government palace in response to their leader’s declaration that he was leaving politics, at least 28 of their number were murdered and about 750 were injured.
Following months of political turmoil, calls for the dissolution of parliament and fresh rounds of elections have been led by Sadr and his followers.
According to the constitution, the prime minister or one-third of the deputies must make a proposal for the dissolution of parliament, and the president must consent.
With 73 MPs, Sadr’s coalition entered the assembly as the largest after the election in October of last year, but it fell well short of a majority.
Since then, the country has been stuck in a political impasse since Shia groups cannot agree on how to build a government.
In an effort to end the impasse, his legislators resigned in June.
After invading the parliament’s chamber on July 30, Sadr’s followers had been holding a sit-in outdoors for weeks.
Signs of Peace
Gun-toting and tuk-tuk-driving Muqtada al-Sadr loyalists have started leaving Baghdad’s Green Zone after the powerful Shia cleric demanded on Tuesday that they stop what they were doing.
Joint Operations Command of the Iraqi military announced the decision to remove the statewide curfew in the wake of two days of violence in the country’s capital, Baghdad, and other regions.
At a news conference in Najaf, Sadr gave an order to put a stop to the protests that had been started by his Monday departure from politics and expressed regret to the Iraqis after 28 people had been slain in violence.
“Because of its loss of its peaceful nature, “this is not a revolution,” Sadr claimed. “It is prohibited to shed Iraqi blood.”
Sadr had given his followers in the fortified Green Zone in downtown Baghdad, where they have been occupying parliament for weeks, one hour (10:00 GMT) to disperse.
“If the Sadrist Movement does not end its protest at parliament within the next 60 minutes, Sadr threatened to leave the movement himself.”
