Sadrists: We would never allow dictatorship, autocracy to return

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The Sadrists, or Iraqis loyal to Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, would never allow the return of dictatorship and autocracy in Iraq, a Sadrist spokesman said on Saturday. “The collective memory of the Sadrists is teeming with bitter incidents. That brought us lose trust in whoever try to cling to power in an autocratic manner,” Mohammed al-Bahadli told IraqiNews.com news agency. “We have offered a proposal deeming a roundtable meeting as an optimal solution for the current political crisis, which, if remained unsolved, could snowball into a real problem,” Bahadli noted. He said that negotiations are still going on inside the Iraqi National Alliance (INA) in order to reach an agreement over the bloc’s candidate for the prime minister post. “We are in favor of naming Dr. Ibrahim al-Jaafari as a strong candidate for the INA. Although he represents a political mainstream different from that of the Sadrists, we would nominate him because the Sadrists respect the wishes of their masses that selected Jaafari in a referendum we had held,” Bahadli pointed out. The Sadrist Movement, upon a call from leader Muqtada al-Sadr, had organized a plebiscite on April 2-3, 2010, exclusively among supports of Sadr, to pick a name for the prime minister post to be promoted by the movement’s al-Ahrar bloc during negotiations over formation of a new cabinet. In that referendum, Jaafari won 24% of the votes, followed by Jaafar Mohammed Baqer al-Sadr from the Dawlat al-Qanoon (State of Law) bloc with 23% and Qusai Abdulwahab from the INA’s al-Ahrar bloc with 17%. AmR (S) 1