Iraq’s political scene entered a new phase of tension after Sayyed Muqtada Al-Sadr, leader of the country’s National Shia Current, issued a strongly worded tweet lashing out at political rivals and questioning the credibility of the upcoming parliamentary elections.
His message, both confrontational and defiant, underlined the fact that although he has formally withdrawn from political participation, his influence remains far from absent.
Using very direct language, Al-Sadr accused his opponents of targeting his movement despite its withdrawal from the elections. “Their arrows are still aimed at the current despite its withdrawal,” he said, adding that the “elections are flawed [and] dominated by the corrupt.”
He warned that the election results would not bring stability to Iraq, predicting instead that they would give rise to “conflicts among you”. He invoked an Iraqi proverb that says that “he who hides a goat in his cloak will hear it bleat,” suggesting that wrongdoing is inevitably exposed.
“Threats will not scare us,” he said.
The most striking element of the tweet was Al-Sadr’s criticism of how Iraq’ s politicians have handled the country’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF).
The PMF have long been shielded from scrutiny, but Al-Sadr accused Iraq’s political elites of abandoning promised legislation to regulate it, bowing instead to US pressure. “There is no care [being taken of] the PMF, whose law the politicians abandoned after deafening us with its sanctity,” he said.
By attacking the lack of a legal framework for the PMF, Al-Sadr was breaking a political taboo, portraying the group as a tool of power rather than a national institution.
He also turned his criticism to the issue of uncontrolled weapons, stressing that “no state can be built when there are weapons of tribes and militias outside government control.”
He accused different groups of stockpiling arms in residential areas, warning that they could be used politically or violently. This reopens one of Iraq’s most sensitive security questions – the existence of parallel power structures that challenge state authority.
The timing of Al-Sadr’s statement is significant. For the first time since 2003, the elections will take place without Sadrist participation, since, now rebranded as the National Shia Current, Al-Sadr had ordered his followers to boycott the vote, framing the decision as the principled rejection of a corrupt system.
However, he has insisted on still using his reformist voice to criticise successive governments for failing to fight corruption or improve public services.
In the 2021 parliamentary elections, the Sadrists won 73 seats and attempted to break Iraq’s sectarian quota system by forging alliances with the country’s Sunnis and Kurds. But fierce resistance from his rivals led Al-Sadr to withdraw his bloc, citing the need to preserve national stability.
The exit left a political vacuum that has been exploited by his opponents, though Al-Sadr’s popular base remains intact.
Throughout his career, Al-Sadr has framed corruption as the core challenge to governance in Iraq. In his latest message, he called the coming elections nothing more than the “domination of the corrupt.”
More than two decades after former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s fall in 2003, Iraq’s state institutions still suffer from entrenched administrative and financial corruption. For Al-Sadr, the ruling elites are not merely incapable of reform but complicit in sustaining this corruption.
His rhetoric echoes his earlier support for the 2019 mass protests in the country, when he endorsed demands to end sectarian quotas and bring accountability. But unlike then, he now speaks from outside the electoral process, underscoring that his boycotting of the elections does not mean silence.
“I will not stir up sedition, but if you want escalation, I am ready for it,” he said. This dual message portrayed him as both a responsible leader who does not seek chaos and a powerful figure capable of mobilising the street if provoked.
He also alluded to security threats, citing leaks suggesting planned marches against the shrine of his father, martyred Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Muhammad Sadiq Al-Sadr.
“Your money and your marches, said to target the shrine of the second martyr, will not benefit you,” he said. This raised alarms about potential plots to assassinate Al-Sadr or target religious symbols. He visited his father’s shrine on 29 September, directly challenging his adversaries.
Al-Sadr’s words were widely reported in the Iraqi media, and political talk shows on TV debated whether his anger was a calculated strategy or a sign of genuine frustration. Some analysts dismissed the statement as a personal outburst, while others argued it signalled the start of a new chapter in Iraq’s power struggles.
For his supporters, Al-Sadr’s fiery tone reassured them of his continued presence and resilience. For his opponents, his dismissal of the elections as “flawed” amounted to an early attempt to undermine their legitimacy.
Whether tactical or emotional, Al-Sadr’s anger carried a clear message: Iraq is heading into elections without the National Shia Current but not without Muqtada Al-Sadr. His influence transcends the number of parliamentary seats his supporters may have or their presence in official institutions and is rooted instead in his ability to command loyalty and mobilise his supporters.
As Iraq’s ruling forces prepare for the elections, Al-Sadr’s tweet will stand as a political document of defiance, summarising his rejection of corruption, his critique of the armed groups, and his warning to rivals that even outside the system he remains a central force in Iraq’s political equation.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 9 October, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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