Iraqi Shiite Political Leaders Opposing Al-Maliki
Two of Iraq’s top Shiite leaders, Muqtada al-Sadr and Ammar al-Hakim, recently met to discuss current political affairs.
The tense struggle between the two Shiite leaders, Muqtada al-Sadr and Ammar al-Hakim, has been going on for several years. Today, however, they meet again in Najaf, their main stronghold and the center of their religious and political strength, to reject Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s proposal of retaining the political majority’s option.
The Najaf meeting on May 7, 2013, was held at Sadr’s residence in al-Hanana. Journalists were expecting the two “friends and enemies,” who never held longer meetings, to be finished in less than an hour, as normal. To their surprise, this time was different, and negotiations lasted for almost three hours.
Hakim entered the Shiite town of al-Hanana, west of Najaf quite casually and quietly despite its population’s deep hostility towards his political party.
In a joint news conference, the two leaders requested that the Iraqi government hold provincial elections in Anbar and Nineveh as soon as possible, and called for the Iraqiya bloc to re-engage in the government and the parliament.
