Sadr’s Inevitable Comeback: How Will He Reenter the Political Game?
For the first time since 2005, Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has no clear political role and no formal road map to get back into politics until elections are held again in 2025. So where does this leave him and the Sadrist movement?
'A supporter holds a portrait of Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr during a protest against corruption in Baghdad's highly fortified Green Zone, Iraq July 27, 2022. (REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani)'
Executive Summary
Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has been a key player on the Iraqi political scene for nearly two decades, bowed out of politics in 2022. He was manipulated by his Shia rivals, who outmaneuvered – and effectively stole power from – him after the October 2021 parliamentary elections. For the first time since 2005, Sadr has no clear political role and no formal road map to get back into politics until elections are held again in 2025. So where does this leave him and the Sadrist movement, which is comprised of millions of his followers? Iraqis fear he could unleash his supporters and take to the streets, as he has done many times in the past, to regain the political leverage he has lost. This has the potential to spark widespread violence and an all-out intra-Shia conflict.
Since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has played a key role in Iraq’s religious and political spheres, particularly as a staunch opponent of vilayet e-faqih.
Results from Iraq’s elections show that a determined young generation can organize and win seats, no matter the obstacles placed in the way by a political system most Iraqis lost faith in long ago.
On June 29, AGSIW hosted a discussion of Geneive Abdo's recent paper examining cooperation between influential Iraqi clerics and civil society activists.
