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2015–2018 Iraqi protests

As sequel to protests in 2011, 2012 and 2013, Iraqi citizens have also in 2015 up until 2018 often and massively protested against the corruption and incompetence in their government which according to analysts and protesters had led to long-running problems in electricity supplies, clean water availability, Iranian interference in Iraqi politics, high unemployment, and a stagnant economy.

2015–2018 Iraqi protests

July 2015 – December 2018

Competent and non-corrupt government

Continued in October 2019

The muhasasa quota agreements of 2003–2006 (distributing ministerial positions including budgets over 'ethnic and religious groups', thus undermining and obliterating any sense of Iraqi national unity[6]) were considered the root of most of those Iraqi problems.

Background[edit]

Twelve years incompetent and corrupt politics[edit]

The elite cartel and muhasasa system, ruling Iraq since 2003, holding that governmental posts and power should be proportionally distributed over the political parties or over the "ethnic, religious and sectarian groups" of Iraq, had, according to many analysts and protesters,[7] led to twelve years of incompetent government up to 2015,[10] failing public services,[2] neglected infrastructure, massive youth unemployment (30% in 2014),[10] political patronage and self-enrichment of politicians hence corruption hence a depleted public purse,[5][6] Iranian political infiltration, sectarian violence,[6] economic underdevelopment,[11] and had therefore already for years drawn widespread popular criticism.[10]


In 2011, demonstrations against the corruption of the government under then-ruling prime minister Nouri al-Maliki (2006–2014) had been suppressed by detainment and intimidation of the organizers.[4] His successor, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, had taken office in 2014 with promises of tough action against corrupt practices, and indeed the graft had become less open but the mechanisms of corruption were still in place.[12]

Long-running problems[edit]

The most obvious failure – blamed by analysts and protesters on the muhasasa system (see above) – was the government's inability to reliably provide electricity,[4] which was commonly provided only twelve hours a day[13] but often in the cities only a few hours per day.[12]


Another long-running problem triggering the Iraqi protests in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, especially in Basra, a city in the centre of the southern Iraqi oil industry but with a relatively low socio-economic development and living standard,[13] was the shortage of fresh drinking water, due to five factors:

2016[edit]

Developments up to early 2016[edit]

When Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi came to power in 2014, he had promised to stamp out corruption (see above, section ‘Background’). In 2015, he had set out a reform plan to create a sense of political unity, to improve the failing economy, and to cut off the political and financial corruption. Iraq's system of sharing government positions among political parties, which often resulted in unqualified ministers and other officials, had often been criticized for encouraging such corruption.[22] Therefore, Abadi in February 2016 had proposed a fundamental change to the cabinet, replacing the party-affiliated ministers with non-partisan "professional and technocratic figures and academics".[7][22][5]

Civilian sit-in, pressing for new cabinet[edit]

Weekly protests over financial and administrative corruption and the lack of basic services were still going on, since August 2015 (see above). The Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, also leader of the second largest party in parliament, around 17 March 2016 backed these protesters, and asked his followers to start a sit-in on 18 March at the gates of the Green Zone in Baghdad where the parliament is based.[21] So, on Friday, 18 March, thousands of Sadr-supporters held their Friday prayers in a main street near the Green Zone in Baghdad and then set up tents for a sit-in, to pressure the parliament to agree with PM Abadi's plan for replacing party-affiliated cabinet ministers with non-partisan people. In his call on 17 March, Sadr had branded the Green Zone "a bastion of support for corruption" but also asked his followers to refrain from violence should they be stopped by security forces. Riot police initially blocked the protesters but then relented and let them march almost to the entrance of the Zone. Waving Iraqi flags, the protesters chanted: "Yes, yes, to Iraq; no, no, to corruption!"[23]


Around 26 March 2016, Muqtada al-Sadr also started his own sit-in, inside the Green Zone, urging Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to do what he had announced in February: install a "government of independent technocrats" free of influence from "the political blocks" within parliament. On 31 March, those "blocks" gave in and agreed to pass Abadi's new cabinet within ten days. Sadr ended his sit-in and asked his followers to end theirs. Within two weeks, however, the "heads" of those "political blocks" in parliament changed their minds and between them again agreed to maintain "the political power-sharing agreement and deepen the influence of the political blocks over top government posts and decisions".[21]

Parliament blocks renewal of cabinet[edit]

On 13 April 2016, the speaker of Parliament, Salim al-Jabouri, ended a parliamentary session before parliament could vote on Prime Minister Abadi's proposed new cabinet list. That incited more than 170 MPs (in a parliament counting only 329 seats) to rebel against speaker Jabouri and begin a sit-in inside the parliament, chanting against "the power-sharing agreement" and "the heads of political blocks".[21] (Another source counted "more than 100 MPs" holding that sit-in.[5])


"Days of chaos" in parliament followed,[24] the sit-in-rebelling MPs on 14 april "voted to dismiss speaker al-Jabouri", in presumably a procedurally invalid voting.[21] On 18 April 2016, again thousands of Muqtada al-Sadr followers protested in Baghdad for reforms.[24] For three weeks, up to 26 April, in which parliament repeatedly failed to vote on a new cabinet list,[25] the parliament could not agree on a new line-up of non-partisan ministers, proposed by PM Abadi.[5]

Massive demonstration against 'quotas and parties'[edit]

Muqtada al-Sadr, Shia cleric and leader of political party Sadrist Movement, on Tuesday 26 April 2016 called on his supporters to show up again in Baghdad at the Green Zone, where the government and parliament are based, to "frighten" MPs from "powerful parties" unwilling to approve the cabinet's reshuffle, announced by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in February 2016 (see above), and "compel" them to accept the prime minister's reforms,[5] and again protest against the government’s failure to provide basic commodities like water and electricity.[26]


Hundreds of thousands of Sadr-followers that day gathered in Tahrir Square in Baghdad and marched towards the heavily-fortified Green Zone, chanting that politicians "are all thieves".[7][5] "The political quotas and the parties that control everything are the reason for the failure of the government," protesters explained.[7] That Tuesday, only a handful of ministers were approved by the parliament,[27] the voting couldn’t be completed due to disruptive behaviour of a dozen Members of Parliament, throwing water bottles towards the Prime Minister[7][27][5] and preventing him from speaking.[7]

Occupation of parliament by Sadr-supporters[edit]

On 30 April 2016, again the Iraqi parliament didn't vote on the full proposal of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi for replacing party-affiliated cabinet ministers with non-partisan people (see above), because too few members (less than the 165 members required[28]) had showed up.[22] Muqtada al-Sadr, Shia Islamic cleric and leader of the political party Sadrist Movement, in a televised news conference again condemnded the political deadlock, criticised the "corrupt [officials] and quotas" – backed later by Iraqi President Fuad Masum who agreed that "burying the regime of party and sectarian quotas cannot be delayed" – and stated that he was "waiting for the great popular uprising and the major revolution to stop the march of the corrupt".[27][22]


Thousands of Sadr's followers after that speech of Al-Sadr came to the Green Zone of Baghdad again,[29] hundreds of them this time broke through the barricades of the Green Zone and stormed the parliament, and occupied the parliament's chamber.[22] Security forces again did not clash with protesters,[27] nor attempted to stop them from entering the parliament;[29] members of a Sadrist armed group checked the entering protesters on the carriage of explosives while the remaining thousands of Sadr's protesters at the gates chanted: "Peaceful !"[27] Some protesters nevertheless began ransacking or rampaging parts of the parliament building.[30][27] Security forces declared a state of emergency.[31][22]


Then, on a call from Muqtada al-Sadr to evacuate the parliament and set up tents outside,[27] the protesters set up a camp on the lawn outside the parliament[22] and, by pulling barbed wire across an exit road, effectively stopped some scared MP's from fleeing the parliament building and the chaos.[30][22]

2017[edit]

Protests against election committee[edit]

On Saturday 11 February 2017, thousands of followers of Muqtada al-Sadr – a Shia Islamic cleric and also oppositional politician of political party Sadrist Movement – held a protesting rally in the capital Baghdad, demanding an overhaul and replacement of the High Electoral Commission (election committee) which they, on the orders of al-Sadr, accused of corruption. Sadr himself claimed, that the commission members were loyal to his Shia rival and former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. Security forces fired tear gas and rubber-coated bullets at the protesters; five protesters and two policemen were killed, 320 protesters and seven police officers wounded.[32][33]


The Iraqi security forces sealed off routes leading to Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone.[32] Later that day, six or seven Katyusha-type rockets purportedly were fired at the Green Zone from within Baghdad, but with no casualties reported.[33]


On Friday, 24 March 2017, again thousands of Muqtada al-Sadr followers protested in downtown Baghdad for the same purposes as in February: the accusation that the Iraqi election committee would be "corrupt" and that therefore, unless that committee would be overhauled, al-Sadr and his (Shiite) followers would boycott the upcoming Iraqi provincial elections. Al-Sadr instead incited his followers to join a "reform revolution".[34]

Against corruption, failing government[edit]

Just like in the summers of 2015 and 2016, protests in Iraq's south were held also in the summer of 2017 in response to corruption, unemployment and failing public services.[9]

2018[edit]

Six causes for protest[edit]

The motives for the public protests in Iraq in 2018 were at least partly the same as in 2011,[4] 2012–13, 2015, 2016 and 2017:

2011 Iraqi protests

2012–2013 Iraqi protests

2019–2021 Iraqi protests

Islamic State insurgency in Iraq (2017–present)