Iraq gets between “coup d’état and liberation”
ERBIL, KRI, Iraq (North Press) – After ten months of elections that have not resulted in any kind of government formation so far, Iraq is now facing multiple dangerous scenarios which politicians have been warning about, after a high level of tension, proceeded by invitations for dialogue.
The Coordination Framework, a collection of mostly Iran-aligned groups, renewed the calls upon the Sadrist Movement and other political parties for dialogue to overcome the current crisis.
The Coordination Framework believes that the current situation has reached “a pathetic level reached coup d’état on the people, state, institutions, the political process, constitution and elections.”
The term “coup d’état” came as a description by the Coordination Framework to refer to what the Sadrist has caused through the public movement, where its supporters controlled the parliament’s building on July 30.
The Sadrist Movement, on the other side, considered the success of his supporters in taking over the parliament’s building as an operation to liberate “The Green Zone”, which is the diplomatic or international zone in Baghdad, promising of changing the current political regime since 2005.
The Coordination Framework said that anyone who has an opinion or a project to amend the constitution is a possible and agreed procedure if it comes under constitutional methods. Any trespassing or jumping over these methods is and will be considered a trespassing to all the red lines and a serious threat to the civil domestic peace and the rule of law.
Beginning of Disagreement
Despite all the contest that happened during the election days on October 10, 2021 and disagreements among the two Shia parties the Iraqi Islamic Dawa Party and the Sadrist Movement have come to the surface during the era of attempt to form a new government.
At first and after winning of the Shia majority in Iraqi parliament, the Sadrist Movement decided to form the majority government. It formed a triangular alliance with Sunni parties including al-Halbousi and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK), excluding other Shia parties with their major leaders, Nouri al-Maliki, Hadi al-Amiri, Ammar al-Hakim, Qais al-Khazali, and Haider al-Abadi behind.
These Shia forces, which were left behind, allied in what is known as the Coordination Framework the thing that was not welcomed by Muqtada al-Sadr, so it tended to form a consensus government against the triangular alliance’s wish.
With the failure of Sadrist Movement and its allies to win two thirds of 320 parliamentarians’ votes, they could not vote to select the prime minister and state’s president.
Thus, it decided, in the middle of June, to withdraw from the parliament leaving the field to its opponent back then the Coordination Framework.
Escalation
It was expected for the Sadrist Movement withdrawal to be tactical, and not a full withdrawal from the political field. That was the reason behind its resorting to the mass mobilization and to stifle the Coordination Framework and its major leader, State of Law Coalition’s head, Nuri al-Maliki.
Al-Sadr started to send hidden messages to his opponents, first by the million-man prayers call in Bagdad two weeks ago to show his strong popularity, which eventually was able to take control over the parliament.
Pro-Sadrist demonstrators broke into the parliament for the first time on July 27, in response to the Coordination Framework’s insistence on its candidate Muhammad Shia’ al-Sudani to be Prime Minister.
For the second time and for the same reasons, pro-Sadrist demonstrators broke into the parliament on July 30 and breached the Green Zone, which considered a safe space and contains high diplomatic offices.
Protestors decided to go with open sit-in inside the parliament’ building which has failed to choose a president or a prime minister.
In response to the Sadrist protests, the Coordination Framework called upon his supporters to organize protests to protect “legitimacy” from what it called “outlaws”, referring to the rival movement that broke into the parliament’s building.
The Coordination Framework described, on Monday, what its rival did as a coup attempt on the legitimacy.
Dialogue invitations
The Coordination Framework called for dialogue to overcome the current crisis, but describing the Sadrist protests as a “coup d’état” may weakens the dialogue initiative.
On the other hand, al-Sadr’s call for a sit-in inside the parliament and describing their break-in as a “liberation” clarifies his view of changing the Iraqi constitution and political regime.
Fateh Alliance leader Hadi al-Amiri called on the Sadrist Movement and the Coordination Framework to “restraint” warning that crowdsourcing might get out of control and finally lead to violence.
President of Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), Nechirvan Barzani invited all parties to come to Erbil “their second capital city” and start an open gathering dialogue to reach an understanding and eventually an agreement.
The United Nations and European Union Mission in Iraq urged to calm down and dialogue.
Scenarios
Despite its difficulty, the repeated invitations for dialogue may eventually lead to a mutual understanding that satisfies the competing forces in order to preserve the country’s initial stability.
The insistence of both Shia parties – the Sadrist Movement and the Coordination Framework – on their positions, implies more escalation, especially with the Sadrists’ description of the parliament break-in as “liberation”, and the Coordination Framework’s description of it as “a coup attempt.”
Instructions given by the Sadrist Movement’s leader to his supporters picketing in the parliament’s building, and his cling to changing the constitution and political regime in Iraq, in addition to the Coordination Framework’s call for its supporters to take to the streets will increase the tension.