Sadr Supporters Perform Friday Prayer Outside Parliament as Political Crisis Lingers

The mass prayer came a few days after Sadr called on the judiciary to dissolve Parliament by the end of next week.

Sadr warned on Wednesday that the Federal Supreme Court of Iraq must heed his call. He said his supporters would continue their sit-in, warning that the protesters would “adopt a different position” if the court failed to dissolve the legislative body.

The judiciary "must dissolve parliament by the end of next week... if not, the revolutionaries will take another stance," Sadr said in a statement on his Twitter account, without elaborating.

Iraq has been grappling with a political crisis in the absence of a functional government since October 2021, when legislative elections were held.

Sadr’s political bloc emerged as the biggest parliamentary faction but fell short of an absolute majority required to form a government. That prompted the current deadlock.

In June, all the 73 legislators of the bloc quit their seats in a move seen as an attempt to pressure political rivals into expediting the formation of a government.

Over the past two weeks, thousands of Sadr’s followers, camped at Parliament, have been preventing the formation of a government.