عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Features

Sadr, Rival Ideologues Tussle for Power in Iraq

Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr delivers a statement in support of early elections outside of his home in Najaf city, on February 10, 2021. (AFP)
Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr delivers a statement in support of early elections outside of his home in Najaf city, on February 10, 2021. (AFP)
TT
TT

Sadr, Rival Ideologues Tussle for Power in Iraq

Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr delivers a statement in support of early elections outside of his home in Najaf city, on February 10, 2021. (AFP)
Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr delivers a statement in support of early elections outside of his home in Najaf city, on February 10, 2021. (AFP)

Head of the State of Law coalition, former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been pressing for holding the parliamentary elections on time in October.

He has made a series of tweets to press his demand, even though he will not personally run in the polls, but his coalition will.

Maliki is not the only Shiite figure hoping the elections will be held as scheduled. Head of the al-Fatah coalition, Hadi al-Ameri has also been making the same demand.

Shiite forces are eager for the elections to be held on time, viewing them as an opportunity to make political gains after prominent cleric Moqtada al-Sadr announced his withdrawal from the race.

Sadr has notably only withdrawn from the elections, not announced a boycott. Moreover, he has not officially approached authorities to pull out from the polls, meaning the mercurial cleric could always still opt to participate.

Before he potentially makes such a move, Shiite powers are sending out the message that they are ready to step in and are capable of filling the void left behind the cleric. Ameri in particular has kicked off his electoral campaign, eyeing a sweep of parliament and the ultimate goal of naming a prime minister, who in Iraq must be a Sunni figure.

Ameri’s electoral agenda offers nothing new to the Iraqis, prompting criticism even from his own supporters. He made the same promises he and others had made in previous elections, none of which have been fulfilled.

Ameri prioritized the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, supporting armed formations and the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), tackling unemployment and providing job opportunities, addressing water problems with neighboring countries, and others.

Meanwhile, efforts are underway to persuade Sadr to reverse his withdrawal decision. As it stands, he is waging a silent battle with his rival ideologues, who are hoping to win over the majority of his popular base during the elections.

The cleric and his rivals follow the same principles and ideological teachings of Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr, who was executed by the former regime in 1980, and Mohammed Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, Moqtada’s father who was assassinated in 1999.

An Iraqi politician, who is close to both sides, told Asharq Al-Awsat that various blocs and leaderships are attempting to persuade Sadr to go back on his withdrawal.

Others, who are seen as Sadr’s rival ideologues, are promoting the idea that they would win enough seats in parliament to allow them to name a new prime minister. Among these figures is Maliki. They believe that the opportunity is available for them to isolate Sadr.

The politician added, however, that Sadr views himself as the sole heir of the Sadr ideological legacy, meaning whoever veers away from his movement will no longer represent the Sadrists and their views.

This rivalry goes beyond elections. Differences exist over the US troop deployment.

Sadr had declared his support to the agreement reached last month between Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi and Washington over their pullout, while the armed factions expressed their opposition to it.

Most Viewed

 
 
Features

Winter Is Hitting Gaza and Many Palestinians Have Little Protection from the Cold

Reda Abu Zarada, 50, displaced from Jabaliya in northern Gaza, warms up by a fire with her grandchildren at a camp in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP)
Reda Abu Zarada, 50, displaced from Jabaliya in northern Gaza, warms up by a fire with her grandchildren at a camp in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP)
TT
TT

Winter Is Hitting Gaza and Many Palestinians Have Little Protection from the Cold

Reda Abu Zarada, 50, displaced from Jabaliya in northern Gaza, warms up by a fire with her grandchildren at a camp in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP)
Reda Abu Zarada, 50, displaced from Jabaliya in northern Gaza, warms up by a fire with her grandchildren at a camp in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP)

Winter is hitting the Gaza Strip and many of the nearly 2 million Palestinians displaced by the devastating 14-month war with Israel are struggling to protect themselves from the wind, cold and rain.

There is a shortage of blankets and warm clothing, little wood for fires, and the tents and patched-together tarps families are living in have grown increasingly threadbare after months of heavy use, according to aid workers and residents.

Shadia Aiyada, who was displaced from the southern city of Rafah to the coastal area of Muwasi, has only one blanket and a hot water bottle to keep her eight children from shivering inside their fragile tent.

“We get scared every time we learn from the weather forecast that rainy and windy days are coming up because our tents are lifted with the wind. We fear that strong windy weather would knock out our tents one day while we’re inside,” she said.

With nighttime temperatures that can drop into the 40s (the mid-to-high single digits Celsius), Aiyada fears that her kids will get sick without warm clothing.

When they fled their home, her children only had their summer clothes, she said. They have been forced to borrow some from relatives and friends to keep warm.

The United Nations warns of people living in precarious makeshift shelters that might not survive the winter. At least 945,000 people need winterization supplies, which have become prohibitively expensive in Gaza, the UN said in an update Tuesday. The UN also fears infectious disease, which spiked last winter, will climb again amid rising malnutrition.

The UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees, known as UNRWA, has been planning all year for winter in Gaza, but the aid it was able to get into the territory is “not even close to being enough for people,” said Louise Wateridge, an agency spokeswoman.

UNRWA distributed 6,000 tents over the past four weeks in northern Gaza but was unable to get them to other parts of the Strip, including areas where there has been fighting. About 22,000 tents have been stuck in Jordan and 600,000 blankets and 33 truckloads of mattresses have been sitting in Egypt since the summer because the agency doesn’t have Israeli approval or a safe route to bring them into Gaza and because it had to prioritize desperately needed food aid, Wateridge said.

Many of the mattresses and blankets have since been looted or destroyed by the weather and rodents, she said.

The International Rescue Committee is struggling to bring in children’s winter clothing because there “are a lot of approvals to get from relevant authorities,” said Dionne Wong, the organization’s deputy director of programs for the occupied Palestinian territories.

“The ability for Palestinians to prepare for winter is essentially very limited,” Wong said.

The Israeli government agency responsible for coordinating aid shipments into Gaza said in a statement that Israel has worked for months with international organizations to prepare Gaza for the winter, including facilitating the shipment of heaters, warm clothing, tents and blankets into the territory.

More than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry's count doesn't distinguish between civilians and combatants, but it has said more than half of the fatalities are women and children. The Israeli military says it has killed more than 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The war was sparked by Hamas’ October 2023 attack on southern Israel, where the armed group killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostages in Gaza.

Negotiators say Israel and Hamas are inching toward a ceasefire deal, which would include a surge in aid into the territory.

For now, the winter clothing for sale in Gaza's markets is far too expensive for most people to afford, residents and aid workers said.

Reda Abu Zarada, 50, who was displaced from northern Gaza with her family, said the adults sleep with the children in their arms to keep them warm inside their tent.

“Rats walk on us at night because we don’t have doors and tents are torn. The blankets don’t keep us warm. We feel frost coming out from the ground. We wake up freezing in the morning,” she said. “I’m scared of waking up one day to find one of the children frozen to death.”

On Thursday night, she fought through knee pain exacerbated by cold weather to fry zucchini over a fire made of paper and cardboard scraps outside their tent. She hoped the small meal would warm the children before bed.

Omar Shabet, who is displaced from Gaza City and staying with his three children, feared that lighting a fire outside his tent would make his family a target for Israeli warplanes.

“We go inside our tents after sunset and don’t go out because it is very cold and it gets colder by midnight,” he said. “My 7-year-old daughter almost cries at night because of how cold she is.”