The Parliament largely avoided responding because reforms and new elections would likely mean that many established political groups would lose power. The country’s senior religious authorities have largely sided with the protesters in demanding change and their pressure led the prime minister to resign at the end of November. Since then, neither the Parliament and the president struggled to find a prime minister candidate on which the Parliament and the protesters could agree. But after the toppling of Saddam Hussein, he began to align himself with his cousin, Iyad Allawi, who was the interim prime minister in 2004, and eventually joined Iraqiya, his cousin’s political party. Within minutes of his nomination, he got an endorsement from the powerful Shiite cleric and political leader Moktada al-Sadr, who controls the largest bloc in Parliament.

Source: New York Times February 01, 2020 20:26 UTC