Former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki delivering a speech on August 8, 2022. Photo: Afaq TV
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Monday said that there will be no dissolution of the parliament or early elections without the return of the legislature to holding sessions, following calls from longtime political rival Muqtada al-Sadr for a snap parliamentary vote.
Influential Shiite leader Sadr on Wednesday called for the dissolution of the current legislature and holding snap parliamentary elections in Iraq amidst demonstrations and a sit-in at the Iraqi parliament building by his supporters in protest of the Coordination’s Framework prime minister pick.
“No dissolution of the parliament, or a change in the system, or early elections without the return of the Council [of Representatives] to holding sessions. For it [the parliament] is the one who discusses these demands, and what it decides, we will follow,” said Maliki in a televised video statement on Monday evening.
Maliki stressed that Iraq is a country of many components and that “no will shall be imposed upon it” unless it is one that reflects the entirety of the Iraqi people.
On Saturday, Sadr stated that there were “no alternatives” to the dissolution of the parliament as it has become a popular, national, and political demand and has received “positive responses” from Iraq’s various components.
Sadr’s calls for snap elections were welcomed by numerous major figures and parties in the Iraqi political scene, including the pro-Iran Shiite parliamentary faction known as the Coordination Framework, which said that it supports any “constitutional path” to resolve the current political impasse in Iraq.
Iraq held early elections in October 2021, but has failed to form a government 10 months after the vote due to disagreements between the legislature’s main blocs over the formation of the government.
The Coordination Framework, of which Maliki is a prominent figure, opposed Sadr’s attempts at forming a national majority government, leading the latter to withdraw all 73 MPs of his bloc from the parliament in June.