Baghdad, Aug 29, (dpa/GNA) – Iraqi influential cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, announced on Monday that he was quitting politics, a move which could complicate the current political impasse in the country.
“I have decided not to interfere in political affairs, but now I announce final retirement,” the Shiite populist cleric, said in a statement posted on his Twitter account.
Al-Sadr said his offices and institutions will be closed, except religious ones.
“If I die or get killed, I ask for your prayers,” he added.
Al-Sadr announced he was quitting in 2014, but he remains influential in the political scene.
He has not held any political positions, but the Sadrist bloc, affiliated to him, won the largest number of seats in last year’s elections. They however did not have the majority needed to form a government.
The cleric told his lawmakers to quit parliament, as a stalemate over government formation continued for more than 10 months.
He has been calling for early parliamentary elections, as his loyalists held a sit-in for weeks in Baghdad’s Green Zone, which houses government buildings and embassies.
Al-Sadr has many followers, and can mobilize hundreds of thousands across the country.
Shortly after his Monday statement, many of his loyalists flooded the Green Zone, and besieged the cabinet building.
GNA