Once again, Moqtada Sadr surprises his world in Iraq, supporters as adversaries. A way of imposing its rhythm on the political life of the country. The Shiite religious leader, a key figure in Iraq, announced on Friday that he would suspend most of the activities of his movement, the Sadrist Current, for at least one year. The troublemaker of Iraqi political life, who appears as a herald of change and the fight against the corruption of political elites, is used to taking his supporters and opponents by surprise with his surprise decisions announced on social networks. Like when he assured on Twitter to withdraw “definitively” from politics last year.
Moqtada Sadr enjoys a strong popular base thanks to his family heritage and tens of thousands of Iraqis obey him to the finger and the eye: he comes from a line of Shiite clerics who descend from the prophet of Islam . His father, Mohammed Sadek Sadr, assassinated by Saddam Hussein’s regime in 1999, is still revered. “That I am a reformer for Iraq (…) but that I cannot reform the Sadrist current is a sin,” launched Moqtada Sadr on Twitter.
An investigation into a support group
“To continue at the head of the Sadrist Current while there are ‘The supporters of the affair’, some corrupt, and harmful sins are being committed, this is a serious matter”, he underlined. Because on social networks, Iraqi media and Internet users shared a video attributed to an obscure group, “The supporters of the affair”, calling to “pledge allegiance to the expected Imam, Sayyed Moqtada Sadr”, thus making the latter the Mahdi, the hidden imam whose return the Shiites hope.
An investigating judge in Baghdad has also issued arrest warrants against “65 suspects” members of this small group, “which promotes ideas provoking dissension and violating the security of society”, according to a press release from the judicial authorities. It is because of this affair that the religious leader announced to “freeze” his current for “at least a year”, but assured that the measure did not concern religious activities: neither Friday prayer, nor “the Institution Heritage”, dedicated to the memory of his father, as well as another religious site of the movement.
In the summer of 2022, in the midst of a Shiite standoff over the appointment of a Prime Minister, Moqtada Sadr announced his “definitive withdrawal” from politics, leading to deadly clashes in Baghdad between his supporters on one side, the army and former Shiite paramilitaries on the other. A few months earlier, when his party dominated parliament, he had taken the country by surprise by ordering his 73 MPs to resign.