BAGHDAD: Iraq’s Federal Court on Wednesday adjourned a session scheduled to look into the dissolution of parliament, following this week’s deadly violence in Baghdad over the country’s prolonged political stalemate.
The Sadrist movement, affiliated with cleric Moqtada al Sadr, filed a lawsuit demanding early elections after the dissolution of the current legislature.
Iraqi media reported that the session was postponed until Thursday.
At least 25 were killed and hundreds injured during clashes, which erupted when Al Sadr’s loyalists stormed government offices in the Green Zone area on Monday.
Parliamentary Speaker Mohammed al Halbusi announced a three-day mourning period on Wednesday.
Since the October parliamentary elections, political forces have failed to agree on nominees for the positions of prime minister and president.
Al Sadr’s bloc won the largest number of seats but lacked the majority needed to form a government.
While he has been calling for early elections, his Iran-backed rivals want to form a government.
The Coordination Framework political alliance had a nominee few weeks ago, but Al Sadr rejected him because of his links to the cleric’s rival and ex-prime minister, Nuri al Maliki.
The Coordination Framework alliance reject Al Sadr’s attempts to get a court decision to dissolve parliament, saying that the constitution stipulates that only lawmakers can vote to do that.
“Sadr is looking to become the most powerful political player in Iraq,” Renad Mansour of British think tank Chatham House said.
“That is his agenda, and part of achieving that requires destabilising not just the political system as such, but particularly the house and building it back up with him at the centre of it.”
Since the aftermath of the US-led war in 2003 that toppled longtime ruler Saddam Hussein, Iraq has been governed under a sectarian power-sharing system.
Tensions escalated sharply on Monday when Sadr loyalists stormed the government palace inside the Green Zone after he announced he was quitting politics.
But Sadr’s supporters then left the Green Zone on Tuesday afternoon when he appealed for them to withdraw within the hour — a demonstration of the cult-like following that earned him his kingmaker status. At least 30 Sadr supporters had been shot dead and nearly 600 wounded in nearly 24 hours of fighting between rival factions. – dpa/AFP
– dpa
