3 Iraqi ministers loyal to Shiite cleric resign over reforms

Three Iraqi ministers loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr resigned from their posts Monday.

The three ministers did so in protest of alleged attempts by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and the parliament to exclude candidates from a cabinet reshuffle which would bring in technocrats loyal to leading political parties.

The influential Sadr cleric is a member in the country's political life and his Al-Ahrar parliamentary party holds 34 seats in the 328-seat parliament.

The three cabinet members are loyal to the Shiite cleric including Muhsin al-Shimmary, minister of water resources, Mohammed Sahib al-Darraji, minister of industry and minerals, and Tariq al-Khaykani minister of construction and housing.

"We, the Ahrar party ministers, have decided to resign today and will send our resignations to the prime minister. We will not participate in our ministries nor any cabinet meetings," announced the three ministers in a statement.

They added that if they remained in their posts with the insistence on the quota system for political parties, this would bind ministers to these parties when several senior ministers are accused of serving the party's interests instead of public interest.

"Remaining in a quota government system would only lead to corruption and failure," the statement said, referring to a system of ethnic and sectarian quota installed following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Towards the end of March, Abadi considerably shocked his cabinet when he presented a list of 14 candidates to the parliament for a new cabinet, which included independent technocrats.

Abadi's move convinced Sadr to end his protest in Baghdad's Green Zone, which houses the government's main offices as well as several embassies, and to ask thousands of his followers who camped outside the Green Zone to leave.

However, political turmoil in the past few days could force Abadi to make changes to his list of candidates in order to add people loyal to political parties who refused to to step down, due to lack of trust between the conflicting political parties.

For the past few weeks, Sadr and thousands of his followers gathered in downtown Baghdad, demanding Abadi to come up with substantial reforms, including government reshuffle, better services and an end to corruption.

The reforms also want to address the country's economic crisis due to the sharp drop in global oil prices whilst security forces are fighting Islamic State (IS) terrorists in the north and west of Iraq.

Last year, Abadi's reform plan, first gained popular support, but with the passing of time the reforms fell short to convince demonstrators who continued their protests and demanded that Abadi be more aggressive against the political parties that benefited from corruption and could reverse the reforms to their own good.

Source: XINHUA