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Protesters throng central Baghdad to demand cabinet reshuffle vote
Followers of Iraq's Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr chant slogans during a protest demanding that parliament approves a long-delayed new cabinet and end political and sectarian wrangling that is hampering a vote on the matter in the streets outside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone in Iraq, April 26, 2016. PHOTO BY REUTERS/Ahmed Saad
26/04/2016
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of protesters took over part of central Baghdad on Tuesday to demand a parliamentary vote on a cabinet reshuffle aimed at fighting corruption, amid divisions between lawmakers that have brought government to a standstill.
Most of the demonstrators at the gates of the heavily fortified Green Zone housing parliament and foreign embassies were supporters of powerful Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has pressured Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to follow through on months-old reform proposals.
The largely peaceful gathering was the biggest in the capital in weeks, and protesters filled a main road stretching nearly two km (1.3 miles) from Tahrir Square to the Green Zone, a Reuters cameraman said.
It was not clear if a parliament session called for by speaker Salim al-Jabouri would convene. Around 100 deputies who have been holding a sit-in in and around the main chamber for nearly two weeks and want to oust Jabouri were seeking to block the meeting.
But Sadr's bloc and the Kurdish alliance, which previously participated in the sit-in, suggested they would attend the session even if it had to be held in a separate hall.
"We are present today at parliament to attend a session whose main goal is the cabinet overhaul," Dhiaa al-Asadi, who heads Sadr's bloc in parliament, told reporters. "Salim al-Jabouri called for this session and he will head it. We will attend."
The protesting lawmakers argue Jabouri's session would be unconstitutional. In a widely contested vote earlier this month, they moved to sack him as part of demands to reform a system that allocates positions based on ethnic and sectarian quotas, and have threatened to take the issue to court.
Abadi, who under reforms of his own announced in February is pushing to replace party-affiliated ministers with technocrats, has warned that the political crisis could hamper the war against Islamic State, which controls swathes of territory in the north and west of the oil-rich country.
Demonstrations in recent weeks have forced some military forces to leave the front lines to secure the capital, according to security sources.
On Tuesday, protesters braving unseasonably hot weather waved Iraqi flags and chanted pro-Sadr slogans as they crossed a bridge over the Tigris River to reach the gates of the Green Zone.
(Reporting by Saif Hameed, Kareem Raheem and Stephen Kalin; Writing by Stephen Kalin; editing by John Stonestreet)
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