Iraq's Prime Minister welcomes Muqtada al-Sadr's decision to contest in the elections

Shafaq News/ The Iraqi Prime Minister, Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, commented on Friday on Muqtada al-Sadr's decision to contest in the parliamentary elections next October.

Al-Kadhimi said on Twitter, "We welcome the return of the Sadrist movement to participate in the elections, and we thank all the political and popular forces and leaders that made efforts for his return."

The Iraqi Prime Minister called on all those parties who will boycott the elections to take similar positions, "we hope for a wide participation of our people in the elections on the path to change."

Al-Kadhimi added, "Iraq first, Iraq and then Iraq."

The next elections will be held on the tenth of next October, according to what the Iraqi Council of Representatives voted to set in a session held on January 19, 2021, amid government pledges to hold fair elections away from the power of arms.

Early elections were a key demand of anti-government protesters who staged mass demonstrations that started in October 2019. 

Last July, The Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said he would not participate in elections and withdrew his support from the government.

But today, the leader of the Sadrist movement announced that he had reversed his decision to boycott the legislative elections scheduled on the tenth of next October.

Al-Sadr announced in a televised speech today that he had received a reform paper from the political forces, considering it "compatible" with his aspirations.

He added, "We will contest the elections to save Iraq from corruption, occupation, dependency, and normalization," adding that "the interest required that we run in the million elections."

One of the most influential figures in Iraq, Muqtada al-Sadr leads a political bloc that emerged as the biggest in the 2018 parliamentary election, with 54 seats in the 329-seat legislature.