Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s political movement said on Sunday its defection was not aimed at toppling Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki despite having dealt another blow to Iraq’s embattled premier. “We have absolutely no intention of pushing Prime Minister Maliki out,” Liwa Sumaysim, head of the political committee of the Sadr group, told AFP in the holy city of Najaf.Sumaysim late Saturday announced at Sadr’s headquarters in Najaf that the movement was withdrawing its 32 MPs from the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), leaving Maliki’s coalition in control of only about half the seats in parliament. “Our protest was about the attitude of the Shiite alliance in which they rejected our demands,” he said.
Announcing the pullout, Sumaysim had complained of “no positive response from the Shiite alliance.” He did elaborate but other Sadr officials complained that Maliki had stopped consulting them over decisions and ordered an inquiry into the movement’s Mahdi Army militia, widely blamed for violence during a Shiite pilgrimage in the shrine city of Karbala last month that killed 52 people.
Abbas al-Bayati, a Turkmen Shiite lawmaker and member of the UIA, said the alliance would try to persuade the Sadr bloc to return. “We will not neglect the Sadr movement and will keep open channels of dialogue with them to listen to them and understand the reasons for their withdrawal.”