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December 11, 2004

What will Moqtada Al-Sadr do now?

I'm not even trying to pretend to understand what is going on any more. Perhaps the UIA pretended to welcome Al Sadr with open arms, only to make it harder for him to oppose them in the end? Not a bad idea, I guess. I hope he keeps his cool, though. If Al Sadr decides to try disrupting the election, that would be a worst case scenario.

Financial Times:

Since negotiations behind the list became public two months ago, Sadr loyalists have issued contradictory messages about whether they would participate, but politicians associated with Mr Sistani expressed confidence that the radical movement could be brought on board.

Hussein al-Shahristani, a nuclear scientist involved in compiling the list, said that the Sadr supporters were not included for bureaucratic reasons, but would back the list.

"The Sadr movement is not registered as a political entity, and therefore is not part of the alliance. but they are supporting the Marja'iya [Shia clergy] in its call for elections and they are asking their followers to vote for this list," Mr Shahristani said.

However, a leading Sadr loyalist politician was quoted by the Arabic-language al-Hayat newspaper on Tuesday that Mr Sadr's followers would "suspend" its participation in the elections, and denied reports of support for Mr Sistani's list.

"We are under siege and prevented from holding Friday prayers in the Kufa mosque [near Najaf]. They closed our offices and they arrested many of the [Sadr] trend's leaders," Ali Smeisim said.

"We suspend our participation in the election unless the government changes its policies, and then we will support the list that we see represents the will of the people."

Mr Sadr has not led prayers in the Kufa mosque near his home in Najaf, nor made any other appearances, since ending a three-week insurrection in late August.

This all directly contradicts earlier reports that the list included 30 members of Al Sadr's group, 25 from DAWA, and on 20 from SCIRI.

Apparently, Moqtada decided on his own to boycott the election again:

The article also reported comments of Muqtada al-Sadr: "Over here you have America shelling cities for the sake of security and the elections, and over there you have the parties that are alleging that elections will help establish security and stability, forgetting the existence of the Occupation."

He said the Sadrists were not participating in the elections because their officials kept being arrested, they were not given permission to open an office in Najaf or to hold Friday prayers in the Kufa Mosque, or to recover the mosques that they used to manage, as well as because of the lack of security in several Iraqi cities.

Az-Zaman: Muqtada al-Sadr warned that the elections scheduled for January 30 will lead to the ethnic partition of Iraq. He wrote in a sermon delivered for him by Shaikh Abd al-Zuhrah al-Suway'idi at the Muhsin Mosque in Sadr City, "They allege that the elections advance security, and security advances the elections. This is false and wrong." Announcing his boycott of the elections, he said, "Beware, beware lest ethnic divisions have a place in the elections. I want only a noble Iraqi election, neither Shiite nor Sunni. However, Iraq can protect for me my religion, my honor, my unity."

To be continued.

Posted by Mike at December 11, 2004 08:05 PM

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