Sadrist Movement leader Muqtada al-Sadr’s political rivals, critics, and opponents from popular protests say Iraq’s Prime Minister-designate Mohammed Allawi’s withdrawing his candidacy is a personal failure for Sadr, who strongly supported him.
Some activists believe Allawi’s inability to form the government was due to the lack of agreement with political quota parties and their blocs.
While others say popular movement groups were the main reason behind rejecting his candidacy, thereby they contributed to thwarting Sadr’s support for Allawi.
Sadr’s supporting tweet for Allawi’s move on Sunday has further pushed his opponents to insult him. He hailed his withdrawal saying it was made “for the love of Iraq,” and accused “corrupt” politicians of “holding the country hostage.”
Most analyses tend to indicate that the steps and positions taken didn’t serve Sadr and his bloc’s interests and have mainly resulted in him losing support from civilians, intellectuals, and journalists.
Before Allawi’s withdrawal, Sadr took several positions to win the support of these sectors, including his alliance with the Iraqi Communist Party in the 2018’s parliamentary elections.
He seemed as an open and religious leader who is against the political forces and Iran’s corruption, who wants to carry out reforms, and who seeks to amend the defects of the political regime.
Despite that, and besides losing the support of most of the civil and cultural movements, many believe that he is also losing the popular movement groups’ support.
His followers were involved more than once in stabbing and killing incidents against demonstrators and sit-in protesters in the Sadrayn Square in Najaf last month.
Observers have interpreted the contradictory positions taken by Sadr over the past few months.
Some say they are greatly affected by his long and relative residence in Iran in recent months, and others say they were greatly affected by the assassination of Iranian Revolutionary Guardian Corps’ Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani early January.
Meanwhile, other observers believe his stances were strongly affected by the repercussions of October's uprising and its profound social and political transformations.
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