BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq’s finance minister resigned Tuesday, two government officials said, in the country’s worst political crisis in years involving an influential Shiite cleric and his Iran-aligned rivals.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said Finance Minister Ali Allawi resigned during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday to protest political conditions. They said that Oil Minister Ihsan Abdul-Jabbar will become acting Finance Minister.
Allawi’s decision came weeks after members of influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s parliamentary bloc resigned from parliament and his supporters stormed the Parliament building in Baghdad. Al-Sadr later demanded the dissolution of parliament and the holding of early elections.
Al-Sadr won the majority of seats in elections last October, but failed to form a majority government that excluded his Iran-aligned rivals.
Al-Sadr’s political rivals in the Coordination Framework, an alliance of Iran-backed parties, earlier said the parliament should meet to dissolve. They called the assault on parliament by supporters of al-Sadr a “coup d’état” and have held demonstrations in support of the government.
Earlier in the day, al-Sadr postponed demonstrations that were planned by his supporters for Saturday after Iran-backed groups called for similar rallies on the same day. This raised concerns about clashes between the two main Shiite rivals in Iraq.
“If you bet on civil war, I bet on civil peace. Iraqi blood is priceless to me,” al-Sadr said in a statement calling for the protests to be postponed until further notice.
Iraq’s political impasse, now in its 10th month, is the country’s longest since the 2003 US-led invasion restored political order.
