Cairo, Egypt (CNN) – After eight months of political paralysis, the kingmaker of Iraqi politics has ordered his bloc to withdraw from parliament. The stepdown of Shia Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s entire group of 73 lawmakers is the largest shakeup in Iraqi politics since an October election saw Iran-backed Shiite blocs losing seats to the Sadrists. “This is a tectonic shift that threatens to derail the post-2003 political order in its entirety,” said Ranj Alaaldin, nonresident fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington, DC. Sadr may be signaling to his supporters that he has done all he can to try to form a government with his Iran-aligned Shiite rivals, said Jiyad. The move may also be a threat to other parties, showing them that they cannot do without him, he added.

Source: Egypt Independent June 14, 2022 14:19 UTC