At least 10 Iraqis were killed on Monday after powerful Shia Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said he would quit politics, prompting his loyalists to storm a palatial government complex in Baghdad and leading to clashes with rival Shia groups.
As night fell, machine-gun fire and explosions rang out, with tracer fire rising into the sky above the Green Zone that houses government headquarters and foreign embassies, in the worst fighting the Iraqi capital has seen in years.
It followed a day of violence prompted by Sadr’s announcement that he would withdraw from all political activity — a decision he said was in response to the failure of other Shi’ite leaders and parties to reform a corrupt and decaying governing system.
Sadr later said he was staging a hunger strike in protest against the use of weapons by all sides.
In addition to the 10 people killed, several dozen were injured, police and medical workers said.
“I hereby announce my final withdrawal,” Sadr had announced earlier on Twitter, criticizing fellow Shia political leaders for failing to heed his calls for reform.
The clashes erupted hours after that declaration, prompting his supporters, who had already been staging a weeks-long sit-in at parliament in the Green Zone, to demonstrate and storm the main cabinet headquarters. Some jumped into a swimming pool at the palace, cheering and waving flags.
Iraq’s military declared an open-ended nationwide curfew and urged the protesters to leave the Green Zone.
During the stalemate over forming a new government, Sadr has galvanized his legions of backers, throwing into disarray Iraq’s effort to recover from decades of conflict and sanctions and its bid to tackle sectarian strife and rampant corruption.
Sadr, who has drawn broad support by opposing both U.S. and Iranian influence on Iraqi politics, was the biggest winner from an October election but withdrew all his lawmakers from parliament in June after he failed to form a government that excluded his rivals, mostly Tehran-backed Shia parties.
Sadr has insisted on early elections and the dissolution of parliament. He says no politician who has been in power since the U.S. invasion in 2003 can hold office.
In Monday’s announcement, Sadr said he would close his offices, without giving details, although he said cultural and religious institutions would remain open.
Sadr’s decision ramped up dangerous tensions among heavily armed Shia groups. Many Iraqis worry that moves by each Shia camp could lead to new civil conflict.
“The [Iran] loyalists came and burned the tents of Sadrists, and attacked protesters,” said Kadhim Haitham, a supporter of Sadr.
Pro-Iran groups blamed the Sadrists for the clashes and denied having shot at anyone. “It’s not true. If our people had guns why would they need to throw rocks?” said one militia member, who declined to be identified by name.
Sadr has withdrawn from politics and the government in the past and has also disbanded militias loyal to him. But he retains widespread influence over state institutions and controls a paramilitary group with thousands of members.
He has often returned to political activity after similar announcements, although the current deadlock in Iraq appears harder to resolve than previous periods of dysfunction.
The current impasse between Sadr and Shia rivals has given Iraq its longest run without a government.
Supporters of the mercurial cleric first stormed the Green Zone in July. Since then, they have occupied parliament, halting the process to choose a new president and prime minister.
Sadr’s ally Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who remains caretaker prime minister, suspended cabinet meetings until further notice after Sadrist protesters stormed the government headquarters on Monday.
Iraq has struggled to recover since the defeat of the Islamic State in 2017 because political parties have squabbled over power and the vast oil wealth possessed by Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest producer.
Haiti enters a new phase aimed at stemming its spiralling political and security crisis, but the future is uncertain.
Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry has resigned, paving the way for a transitional council to lead the embattled country.
In a letter posted to social media on Thursday, Henry said his administration had “served the nation in difficult times”. The letter was dated Wednesday.
The transitional council was officially installed on Thursday. The outgoing cabinet said that, pending the formation of a new government, Economy Minister Michel Patrick Boisvert has been appointed as interim prime minister.
An alliance of the country’s powerful gangs began a coordinated attack on the capital city of Port-au-Prince at the end of February. That coincided with Henry’s visit to Kenya in support of a United Nations-backed security force that the East African country had agreed to deploy to Haiti.
Amid the violence, Ariel agreed to resign last month and has not returned to Haiti. CBS News has reported that he has been protected by the United States Secret Service while abroad.
The nine-member transitional council, where seven members will have voting powers, is expected to help set the agenda of a new cabinet. It will also appoint a provisional electoral commission, which will be required before elections planned for 2026 can take place. They are also set to establish a national security council.
While gang leaders had called on Henry to resign, they voiced anger over their exclusion from transitional negotiations, and it remains unclear how they will respond to the new council.
For its part, the international community has urged the council to prioritise Haiti’s widespread insecurity.
Before the latest attacks began, gangs had already controlled 80 percent of Port-au-Prince. The number of Haitians killed in early 2024 increased by more than 50 percent compared with the same period last year, according to a recent United Nations report.
Meanwhile, about 360,000 Haitians remain internally displaced, with gang violence forcing 95,000 people to flee the capital and pushing five million into “acute hunger”, according to the UN.
Henry was never directly elected. Instead, he was chosen for the prime minister post by Haitian President Jovenel Moise shortly before Moise was assassinated in 2021, and came to power with the backing of the US and other Western countries.
But many rights observers have been wary about what comes next in a country that has seen decades of spiralling crises fuelled by corrupt leaders, failed state institutions, poverty, gang violence, and an international community, led by the US, whose interventions in domestic politics are widely unpopular with Haitians.
As a result, many Haitians remain wary of any foreign involvement in Haiti today, saying that it will only add to the chaos. Nevertheless, several top human rights advocates have said Haitian national police are ill-equipped to stem the violence.
For its part, Kenya had paused its plans to deploy a security force to Haiti until the transitional council took power although it remains unclear if that is still the case.
The race for mayor and city council will not cross the finish line until October of next year but the first big step is now
Published Apr 25, 2024 • Last updated 50 minutes ago • 4 minute read
The man insists upon a point to be made.
“This is not a takeover by the UCP of municipal elections and it’s not a takeover by the NDP of municipal elections. It won’t be allowed to be. It will be an overt prohibition. Nobody is taking over anything.”
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The man quoted is Ric McIver.
In a previous life McIver was a long-serving fiscal hawk on Calgary city council, nicknamed Dr. No by this scribbler because he was no fan of big spending.
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McIver is now Premier Danielle Smith’s point man on cities and he’s delivering news that could pave the way for a real shakeup at Calgary city council where lefties rule the roost.
Read on.
The race for mayor and city council will not cross the finish line until October of next year but the first big step is now.
It is Thursday and later this day the UCP government led by Premier Smith will roll out its plan to allow local political parties to contest the next city election in Calgary and Edmonton “where political affiliations are most obvious.”
The move is already opposed by Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek who says she is not a fan.
The Smith government is pushing forward.
They intend to create rules city political parties will operate by.
With city political parties, a candidate’s political party will appear on the ballot.
Candidates can still run as independent candidates.
These city political parties will only be in Calgary and Edmonton, at least for now.
These parties will not have any formal affiliation with federal or provincial parties. There will be no city UCP or NDP or Liberal party.
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There will be no sharing of funds or voter lists between federal or provincial parties and these city parties.
The Smith government will discuss all the ins and outs with local governments in Alberta and regulations governing the parties will be on the books by the end of the year, or at least more than six months before the fall 2025 city election.
This will give the cities and the political players in those cities time to prepare for the vote.
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For years, city conservatives, especially in Calgary, have been champing at the bit for the chance to do battle as a local political party.
The belief is, and there is evidence to back it up, if city conservatives could get their act together and agree to one candidate for mayor and 14 candidates for the 14 council seats they’d have a good chance of being the city council majority.
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Why?
Because if Calgarians knew exactly who they were voting for and if it was crystal clear what each of the candidates stood for then you would see more conservatives win instead of the election being a game of who has the most name recognition.
There will be those who will attack the Smith government and say this is about partisanship at the local level, folks picking sides.
Get real.
“There’s a lot of partisan behaviour and people in municipal politics now,” says McIver.
“There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s actually part of free speech, part of the freedom of association, part of what we’re guaranteed in this country.
“Those who say partisanship doesn’t exist are wrong. My guess is people who say that probably haven’t sat through a lot of council meetings. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it’s a duck.”
And let us not forget in the last city election city unions bankrolled a campaign involving the endorsement of candidates, many of them winning council seats.
McIver says having city parties is an opportunity to hold politicians somewhat accountable.
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The cities boss says right now there are candidates at the doors with no party handle who can tell people they believe are conservative that they themselves are conservative and tell people they believe are liberal that they themselves are liberal.
With city parties, it will make it easier for those who want to vote one way or the other to find their candidate.
The candidate’s affiliation will be spelled out and if the candidate is elected and votes in a different way the voters can more easily call that politician out.
But people like Calgary Mayor Gondek don’t like the idea of city political parties.
What is McIver’s reaction?
“We heard that and we disagree. We think this is a positive thing,” says the man riding herd on the cities file for the UCP.
“It should increase accountability. It should increase the ability of voters to look at candidates and say this is my candidate, this is not my candidate.”
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OTTAWA – Conservative member of Parliament Colin Carrie, who represents Oshawa, Ont., says he will not run in the next election.
Carrie was first elected in 2004 and re-elected six times.
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