Iraq’s senior cleric on Friday urged political leaders to refrain from clinging to their posts – an apparent reference to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has defied demands that he step aside. Speaking through an aide who delivered a sermon after Friday prayers in the holy city of Kerbala, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said leaders should show flexibility so that political deadlocks could be broken and Iraq could confront militants.
Last month, Sunni militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant swept through northern and western Iraq, posing the biggest challenge to Maliki’s Shi’ite-led government since the departure of US forces in 2011.
Critics say Maliki is a divisive figure whose alienation of Sunnis has fueled sectarian hatred and played into the hands of the insurgents, who have threatened to march on Baghdad.
Sistani said it is time for politicians to think of Iraq’s interests, not their own.
“The sensitivity of this phase necessitates that all the parties concerned should have a spirit of national responsibility that requires the practice of the principle of sacrifice and self denial and not to cling to positions and posts.”
Maliki, a Shi’ite, has ruled since an election in April in a caretaker capacity, dismissing demands from the Sunnis and Kurds that he step aside for a less polarizing figure. Even some Shi’ites oppose his bid for a third term.
Iraq’s parliament elected senior Kurdish lawmaker Fouad Masoum as president on Thursday, a long-awaited step in creating a new government capable of countering the insurgency. Politicians have been in deadlock over forming a new government since the election. The next step, choosing a prime minister, may prove far more difficult as Maliki digs in.
