Shafaq News/ On Monday, the Shiite Coordination Framework (CF) held a meeting at the house of the head of the Al-Fateh Alliance, Hadi Al-Amiri.

A source told Shafaq News Agency that the CF leaders would discuss the latest political situation, including Al-Ameri's visit to Iraqi Kurdistan, forming the next government, and ways to resolve the disagreements with the Sadrist movement.

On Sunday, the leader of the al-Fatah coalition held meetings in Erbil with Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, PM Masrour Barzani, and leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Bafel Talabani, and discussed the recent initiative he had launched to overcome the political deadlock.

Rival Iraqi factions took to the streets of Baghdad to call for a new government, with supporters of religious scholar Muqtada al-Sadr demanding early elections and his opponents in the Coordination Framework saying the results of last October's poll should be honored.

Thousands of al-Sadr's followers prayed outside parliament on Friday in a show of support for the populist leader, who has called on the judiciary to dissolve parliament by the end of next week.

Hours later, supporters of Iran-backed groups opposed to al-Sadr rallied on the edge of the fortified Green Zone, where parliament and foreign embassies are located, insisting they should form the new government based on the October election.

Followers of al-Sadr stormed the parliament last month and have since been holding a sit-in outside the assembly building in the Iraqi capital.

The rivalry between the two sides shows the deep divisions within Iraq's Shiite community, which makes up about 60 percent of Iraq's population of more than 40 million people. 

Al-Sadr, a populist leader with loyalists running top government positions, has been a harsh critic of widespread corruption in the oil-rich country torn by decades of US-led war and subsequent violence, with a crumbling infrastructure, an impoverished majority, and a lack of essential services.

Al-Sadr, whose camp won the most votes in parliamentary elections last October, has not been able to form a majority government. So after eight months of deadlock and jockeying with rival factions, he abandoned those attempts.

Members of al-Sadr's parliamentary bloc resigned, but instead of allowing his rivals — the Coordination Framework — to try and form a government, al-Sadr demanded that parliament be dissolved and early elections are held.