Al-Sadr's movement plans to obtain a majority of provincial seats or boycott the local elections

POSTED ON[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] BY [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

[size=52]Al-Sadr's movement plans to obtain a majority of provincial seats or boycott the local elections[/size]

[size=45]Baghdad / Tamim Al-Hassan[/size]
[size=45]The Sadrist movement plans to control the largest number of governors' positions in 10 cities with a Shiite majority, otherwise it may not participate in the local elections that are supposed to take place before the end of this year.[/size]
[size=45]Thus, the current faces a difficult task to win the new round, as it is still far from arranging the party papers for the form of the provincial elections, and it may take place according to a mechanism that does not satisfy the Sadrists.[/size]
[size=45]On the other hand, the Sadrists know that their limited representation, according to the description of a leader in the movement, in the executive body is a temporary matter, as the Dawa Party is trying to remove them from most positions, so they must be one step ahead of it.[/size]
[size=45]The movement and the rest of the political forces know that the next playing field will be in the provinces, and according to a Shiite politician, the conservatives in the coming period must choose to side with any team.[/size]
[size=45]It seems that the filtering process announced by the government about two weeks ago, to evaluate ministers, governors, and the rest of the special grades, may help in forming a political map that precedes the local elections.[/size]
[size=45]As a first stage, information began to leak about governors who would fall in the evaluations, and there was a hint of ministers who might be replaced.[/size]
[size=45]How does the Sadrist movement precede its opponents?[/size]
[size=45]A leader in the movement talks to (Al-Mada) about a process he called "re-momentum", in which the ranks of the Sadrists are arranged after violent political upheavals that took place last year.[/size]
[size=45]According to his account, the movement lost more than 50 of its followers in the armed clashes that took place in the Green Zone last August.[/size]
[size=45]And before that, Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the movement, had given up the biggest gain he achieved after 2003, when he decided to withdraw his deputies from parliament in June 2022 and not to participate in forming the government.[/size]
[size=45]In the last two years, the Sadrist movement had started a new project called "Al-Bunyan Al-Marsous" - a name taken from Surat Al-Saff, which speaks of the believers uniting in fighting as one wall - and was considered as a new party operating in the shadows and might jump to the fore at any moment.[/size]
[size=45]The movement began to give a cultural imprint on the new entity, while thousands of young people joined the project, which organizes free courses for school students and religious lectures, after opening the door for registration.[/size]
[size=45]The Sadrist leader, who asked not to be named, says, "The movement is planning a larger mobilization so as not to fall into a crisis like the one that occurred last year when it was unable to form a majority government."[/size]
[size=45]The leader did not comment positively or negatively about whether the street card was one of the steps in which the movement would precede its opponents, but he stressed that "we are watching what is going on and the leader of the movement as well."[/size]
[size=45]And the Sadrist leader considered that "thrusting the members of the movement into a protest means pushing them to be executed...the factions do not fear blood, and what we lost in the Green Zone is enough."[/size]
[size=45]Last year, Muqtada al-Sadr issued a stern warning to prevent demonstrations that his followers tried to organize in front of his home in Al Hanana, Najaf.[/size]
[size=45]He had also preached al-Sadr last November, for the first time in Friday prayers in the city of Kufa, after the political crisis and his retirement.[/size]
[size=45]His supporters said at the time about the speeches that did not carry any political expressions at the time, that they will change in the future and will be more related to political affairs, which has not happened so far.[/size]
[size=45]Despite al-Sadr's silence over the past four months, his silence is a source of concern for his opponents in the coordination framework.[/size]
[size=45]The leader, a former deputy, adds: "We know that our presence in the executive branch, despite its limitations, is a temporary matter. The Dawa Party wants to exclude us from all positions."[/size]
[size=45]According to the movement, their participation in important positions does not exceed 12% at best, which is contrary to what the Shiite forces claim that the former was able to control 60% of the positions during the last three years.[/size]
[size=45]And the former deputy goes on: “Positions will not matter to us now, because we left the most important thing, which is the House of Representatives. It is natural that we lose our positions sooner or later.”[/size]
[size=45]Until now, Prime Minister Muhammad al-Sudani seems reluctant to harm the positions of the Sadrists, as he backed down from dismissing the governors of Dhi Qar and Najaf, which angered Nuri al-Maliki, the leader of the State of Law, who announced in a televised interview that he did not agree with the prime minister's retreat.[/size]
[size=45]On the other hand, Hamid al-Ghazi, the prominent Sadrist leader, is still secretary of the Council of Ministers, and Hussein al-Awadi, another leader and former Sadrist deputy, is still a senior undersecretary of the Ministry of Interior.[/size]
[size=45]Provincial game[/size]
[size=45]The Sadrist leader says about the discussions taking place now among the circles of the movement that the latter "is thinking of obtaining the largest number of governors in 10 provinces that are described as having a Shiite majority."[/size]
[size=45]Accordingly, the current must obtain more than half of the seats in the upcoming provincial councils, adding: “We will definitely not ally with any party in those provinces.[/size]
[size=45]The current had aspired in the legislative elections to form a majority government without the need for an alliance, and initially planned to obtain 100 seats, but it only got 72, and the circumstances of the alliance with the Shiite forces forced it to give up its ambition.[/size]
[size=45]This time, he may be exposed to the same loss, as the movement confirms that it is not yet a party to the discussions that are taking place on the legislation of a new law for local elections, which the Prime Minister announced to be held next October.[/size]
[size=45]According to what is being leaked from the discussions of the political forces, there is a desire that may seem to have gained wide support, to return to the “St.[/size]
[size=45]And the Sadrist movement believes, according to the leader, that despite the latter's support for the various constituencies in holding the elections, "but the important thing is that we get most of the provincial council seats, otherwise we may not participate."[/size]
[size=45]The conservative file is of great importance in the discussions of the political forces, and a Shiite politician said in an interview with (Al-Mada) that "this file means drawing up a new political map before the elections."[/size]
[size=45]The politician, who asked not to be named, believes that: "The recent evaluation process for the conservatives launched by the government is an embarrassment to the conservatives and forces them to declare allegiance to a specific party, otherwise he may lose his position."[/size]
[size=45]The politician hints that the Dawa Party will be the most dominant in the governorates in the event that the position is redistributed - before the elections - because it has more than 50 seats, most of which were not used in the points equation (positions according to electoral weight).[/size]
[size=45]The Prime Minister's Office had announced, earlier, that it had sent a form to the House of Representatives that included the deputies' evaluation of the governors in 13 governorates.[/size]
[size=45]The questionnaire included the evaluation of the members of the House of Representatives for the province (Baghdad, Nineveh, Basra, Kirkuk, Diyala, Wasit, Anbar, Babil, Karbala, Najaf, Maysan, Dhi Qar, Muthanna).[/size]
[size=45]The evaluation form included 6 paragraphs (assessments), most notably on the governor's ability to make decisions, address problems, and his role in encouraging investment.[/size]
[size=45]The form asked for the MP's recommendations on those ratings by marking a field as Poor, Average, Good, or Very Good.[/size]
[size=45]And Al-Sudani decided last year to give the governors 3 months after pressure from Al-Maliki, according to sources who spoke to (Al-Mada) and confirmed that “the state of law will get between 4 to 6 governors if the evaluation ends.”[/size]
[size=45]Informed sources indicated that the state of law «wants to control Najaf, Nasiriyah and Maysan (which are provinces run by Sadrists), and to a lesser extent Basra and Wasit».[/size]
[size=45]As for the ministers who were given a 6-month deadline for evaluation, the sources suggest that a slight cabinet reshuffle will occur because the prime minister “is not satisfied with some of the names in his government, which he says were imposed on him because of the partisan division of positions.”[/size]
[size=45][You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]