Baghdad: Several thousand demonstrators turned out in Baghdad and the south yesterday to protest rampant corruption and the abysmal electricity services that plague Iraq, calling for officials to be held to account.
Iraq’s top Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, called earlier in the day for Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi to take a tougher stand against corruption and name and shame those impeding reform.
“All of you together to the court, all of you are thieves,” chanted protesters gathered at Baghdad’s Tahrir Square and carrying Iraqi flags. “Friday after Friday, we’ll get the corrupt out.”
Protesters also turned out in Nasiriyah, south of Baghdad, to air similar grievances, a journalist said. Baghdad and other cities have seen weeks of protests against the poor quality of services, especially power outages that leave Iraqis with only a few hours of government-supplied electricity per day as temperatures top 50 degrees Celsius (120 degrees Fahrenheit). The demonstrators, many of them secular Iraqis, have blamed the services crisis on corruption and incompetence across the political class.
Nabil Jassem, an organiser of the latest protest in Baghdad, said their demands include improving electricity service and finding a new means of combating corruption.
“If anyone thinks this demonstration is targeting a minister or a certain official, I want to correct this and say it is against everyone who was responsible for the energy file from 2003 until now,” Jassem said. He urged Abadi to take direct responsibility for energy affairs.
Abadi took office nearly a year ago promising tough action against corrupt practices that had come to symbolise the tenure of his predecessor, Nouri Al Maliki.
Observers argue that while graft may be less open than it once was, the mechanisms of corruption remain in place.
In an attempt to assuage protesters, Abadi has imposed programmed electricity cuts on state institutions and top officials but Sistani said more was needed.
Sistani, who is revered by millions of Iraqis, said Abadi must do more to fight corruption.
“He must be more daring and courageous in his reforms,” Ahmed al-Safi, a representative of the reclusive Sistani, said in a sermon delivered in the shrine city of Karbala. “He should not be satisfied with some minor steps he recently announced,” Safi said.
AFP
