Shafaq News/ In his first statement after nominating him for the presidency of the Council of Ministers, Jaafar Al-Sadr pledged to "restore the state."
"I am honored to be a candidate for an alliance representing the country in all its sects…Let us work together to restore the state that all my dear people aspire to." He said on Twitter.
Jaafar Al-Sadr is the only son of Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, an Iraqi Shiite cleric who the government of Saddam Hussein executed in 1980 after he published a defense of the Iranian Revolution.
He was elected in 2010 as a member of the Council of Representatives for the State of Law Coalition of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
He resigned from parliament in February 2011 to protest the deterioration in services and the system of "patronage and cronyism."
Al-Sadr was again cited as a potential Prime Minister following the 2018 election. Now he is the Ambassador of Iraq to the United Kingdom.
Today, the Parliamentary alliance "Saving the Homeland," which is consisted of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the Sadrist bloc, and Al-Siyada Alliance, announced their nominees officially for the Iraqi Presidency and the Prime minister.
In a press conference, the head of the Sadrist bloc, Hassan al-Adhari, said, "our candidate for Presidency is Rebar Ahmed (the Current Minister of Interior in Kurdistan), and for the position of Prime Minister is Muhammad Jaafar Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr (the current Iraqi Ambassador to London)."
Muqtada al-Sadr, considered announcing the candidates of the highest positions in Iraq by the tripartite Alliance as "a unique and important achievement."
The Head of the State of Law Coalition, Nuri al-Maliki, challenged the tripartite Alliance to collect the necessary number of deputies in the next election session scheduled for electing the Iraqi President.
"The other party (the tripartite alliance) can't collect 220 deputies in the presidential election session," Al-Maliki said in an interview.
"We threatening the independent representatives to accept the dictates of some political parties."
According to Article 70 of the Iraqi Constitution, the President of the Republic should attain a two-thirds majority of the total number of deputies, which is also the needed quorum to open the session for election.