Newspaper: Iraq PM Abadi to secede from party, ally with Sadr
Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi. File photo.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Disagreements within Iraq’s Islamic Daawa Party will apparently prompt Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to break away from the organization, a newspaper has said.
Saudi-owned al-Hayat newspaper, quoting sources “close to Abadi”, said that Abadi’s differences with senior party figures will push him towards allying his al-Nasr list with Saeroon, the best-performing bloc during the latest parliament elections sponsored by Shia cleric and populist leader Muqtada al-Sadr. That is all with an eventual aim of securing a renewed term as prime minister, according to the paper.
According to al-Hayat, Sadr and the supreme Shia clergy in Najaf agree that the next prime minister has to be independent from partisan affiliations, especially from Daawa, home to Iraqi Vice President Nuri a-Maliki, a former prime minister and a contestor to al-Sadr and Abadi.
According to official results of parliament polls that ran on May 12th, Sadr’s Saeroon came first. Second came al-Fatah, an alliance of former leaders of the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces, the Shia-led troops that backed government forces campaign, under Abadi, to drive out Islamic State militants since 2014. Abadi came third.
The authorities will yet address challenges to the integrity of the votes.