As sequel to protests in 2011, 2012 and 2013, Iraqi citizens have also in 2015 up until 2018 often and massively protested against the corruption and incompetence in their government which according to analysts and protesters had led to long-running problems in electricity supplies, clean water availability, Iranian interference in Iraqi politics, high unemployment, and a stagnant economy.
The muhasasa quota agreements of 2003–2006 (distributing ministerial positions including budgets over 'ethnic and religious groups', thus undermining and obliterating any sense of Iraqi national unity) were considered the root of most of those Iraqi problems.
Background Twelve years incompetent and corrupt politics The elite cartel and muhasasa system, ruling Iraq since 2003, holding that governmental posts and power should be proportionally distributed over the political parties or over the "ethnic, religious and sectarian groups" of Iraq, had, according to many analysts and protesters, led to twelve years of incompetent government up to 2015, failing public services, neglected infrastructure, massive youth unemployment (30% in 2014), political patronage and self-enrichment of politicians hence corruption hence a depleted public purse,'Iraq: Sadr supporters in mass protest for political reform'. BBC, 26 April 2016. Retrieved 14 April 2023. Iranian political infiltration, sectarian violence, economic underdevelopment, and had therefore already for years drawn widespread popular criticism.
In 2011, demonstrations against the corruption of the government under then-ruling prime minister Nouri al-Maliki (2006–2014) had been suppressed by detainment and intimidation of the organizers. His successor, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, had taken office in 2014 with promises of tough action against corrupt practices, and indeed the graft had become less open but the mechanisms of corruption were still in place.
Long-running problems The most obvious failure – blamed by analysts and protesters on the muhasasa system (see above) – was the government's inability to reliably provide electricity, which was commonly provided only twelve hours a day but often in the cities only a few hours per day.
Another long-running problem triggering the Iraqi protests in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, especially in Basra, a city in the centre of the southern Iraqi oil industry but with a relatively low socio-economic development and living standard, was the shortage of fresh drinking water, due to five factors: Upstream dams in the rivers Tigris and Euphrates or their contributory rivers in Turkey, Syria and Iran had diminished those rivers on Iraqi territory;'Why water is a growing faultline between Turkey and Iraq'. Financial Times, 4 July 2018. Retrieved 26 April 2023. for the city of Basra and surroundings, new dams around 2009 in the Iranian river Karun had been especially disastrous; Citizens accused Iran of throwing saline drainage in the Shatt al-Arab river, the Iraqi river into which the Iranian river Karun empties; similarly, Iraqi officials have stated that Iran at times pumped contaminated water, left over from its farmlands, towards Iraqi territory; Streams and canals in southern Iraq had become clogged with trash being dumped; Iraq's infrastructure generally was crumbling; specifically, the neglect of Iraq's water management had allowed saltwater from the Persian Gulf to leak into southern Iraqi farmland and freshwater canals; The rainfall in Iraq was decreasing as an effect of the global climate change.
2015: Protests and reform resolutions
All the years of smouldering discontent (see above) escalated in the summer of 2015 into public street protests when a lasting decline in oil prices (oil generating 96% of the state's income) and a strong increase of military expenditures (due to the war on ISIL) strongly affected the state's ability to satisfy the needs and demands of the people.
In July 2015, protests sparked in Basra, triggered mainly by the poor electricity supplies (see above). During the protest on 16 July, a man was killed in a clash with police. On another protest on 19 or 20 July in Basra, again "violence erupted". Those protests spread to more cities.
On Friday 31 July 2015, hundreds protested in capital Baghdad over the enduring problem of electricity power outages, which they blamed on government corruption. On Saturday, 1 August, another protest was held in Basra, in front of the provincial governor's office, over frequent electricity blackouts and salty tap water (see above, section 'Long-running problems'). The same day, a large crowd in the Shia Islamic holy city of Karbala marched from the vicinity of the holy Imam Husayn Shrine to the provincial governor's office, protesting the electricity blackouts, chanting: "You are stealing from us in the name of religion", and saying: "Those people have high salaries and electricity 24 hours a day." On 2 August, in Nasiriyah and Najaf, hundreds protested over electricity and corruption, and in Hillah a thousand people protested over poor public services.
On Friday 7 August 2015, several thousand protested at Baghdad's Tahrir Square, carrying Iraqi flags, chanting: "All of you together to the court, all of you are thieves". In contrast to the demonstration of 31 July which had been organized by secular groups, the one on 7 August was backed by "the powerful Shiite factions", and by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani who was (and is) regarded as the voice of Shiite moderation, revered by millions of Iraqis, and Iraq's "supreme religious authority". In a sermon during the Friday prayers delivered by his aide and spokesman Ahmed al-Safi in Karbala, ahead of the demonstration that day, al-Sistani stated that Prime Minister Abadi needed to be "more daring and braver in his reforms" combatting the corruption in his government: Abadi "should make the political parties accountable and identify who is hampering the march of reform, whoever they are", Mr al-Safi added. Similar protests were held that day in Shiite cities like Basra, Najaf, Nasiriyah and Karbala.
Two days later already, on 9 August, Abadi released a first package of reforms, including the abolition of a great number of non-essential government posts responsible for vast expenditures. On 11 August, the Iraqi parliament, pressured by the mass protests and the appeals from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, unanimously approved Abadi's reforms, and also announced their own plan to replace the system of awarding governmental positions to party loyals with professional recruitment criteria. On 16 August 2015, Abadi issued a second package of reforms, considerably reducing the number of ministries. After August 2015, weekly protests over perceived corruption and mismanagement and Baghdad's failure to provide basic services such as electricity held on, peacefully, into the next year.
2016 Developments up to early 2016 When Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi came to power in 2014, he had promised to stamp out corruption (see above, section ‘Background’). In 2015, he had set out a reform plan to create a sense of political unity, to improve the failing economy, and to cut off the political and financial corruption. Iraq's system of sharing government positions among political parties, which often resulted in unqualified ministers and other officials, had often been criticized for encouraging such corruption. Therefore, Abadi in February 2016 had proposed a fundamental change to the cabinet, replacing the party-affiliated ministers with non-partisan "professional and technocratic figures and academics".
Civilian sit-in, pressing for new cabinet Weekly protests over financial and administrative corruption and the lack of basic services were still going on, since August 2015 (see above). The Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, also leader of the second largest party in parliament, around 17 March 2016 backed these protesters, and asked his followers to start a sit-in on 18 March at the gates of the Green Zone in Baghdad where the parliament is based. So, on Friday, 18 March, thousands of Sadr-supporters held their Friday prayers in a main street near the Green Zone in Baghdad and then set up tents for a sit-in, to pressure the parliament to agree with PM Abadi's plan for replacing party-affiliated cabinet ministers with non-partisan people. In his call on 17 March, Sadr had branded the Green Zone "a bastion of support for corruption" but also asked his followers to refrain from violence should they be stopped by security forces. Riot police initially blocked the protesters but then relented and let them march almost to the entrance of the Zone. Waving Iraqi flags, the protesters chanted: "Yes, yes, to Iraq; no, no, to corruption!"
Around 26 March 2016, Muqtada al-Sadr also started his own sit-in, inside the Green Zone, urging Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to do what he had announced in February: install a "government of independent technocrats" free of influence from "the political blocks" within parliament. On 31 March, those "blocks" gave in and agreed to pass Abadi's new cabinet within ten days. Sadr ended his sit-in and asked his followers to end theirs. Within two weeks, however, the "heads" of those "political blocks" in parliament changed their minds and between them again agreed to maintain "the political power-sharing agreement and deepen the influence of the political blocks over top government posts and decisions".
Parliament blocks renewal of cabinet On 13 April 2016, the speaker of Parliament, Salim al-Jabouri, ended a parliamentary session before parliament could vote on Prime Minister Abadi's proposed new cabinet list. That incited more than 170 MPs (in a parliament counting only 329 seats) to rebel against speaker Jabouri and begin a sit-in inside the parliament, chanting against "the power-sharing agreement" and "the heads of political blocks". (Another source counted "more than 100 MPs" holding that sit-in.)
"Days of chaos" in parliament followed, the sit-in-rebelling MPs on 14 April "voted to dismiss speaker al-Jabouri", in presumably a procedurally invalid voting. On 18 April 2016, again thousands of Muqtada al-Sadr followers protested in Baghdad for reforms. For three weeks, up to 26 April, in which parliament repeatedly failed to vote on a new cabinet list, the parliament could not agree on a new line-up of non-partisan ministers, proposed by PM Abadi.
Massive demonstration against 'quotas and parties' Muqtada al-Sadr, Shia cleric and leader of political party Sadrist Movement, on Tuesday 26 April 2016 called on his supporters to show up again in Baghdad at the Green Zone, where the government and parliament are based, to "frighten" MPs from "powerful parties" unwilling to approve the cabinet's reshuffle, announced by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in February 2016 (see above), and "compel" them to accept the prime minister's reforms, and again protest against the government's failure to provide basic commodities like water and electricity.
Hundreds of thousands of Sadr-followers that day gathered in Tahrir Square in Baghdad and marched towards the heavily-fortified Green Zone, chanting that politicians "are all thieves". "The political quotas and the parties that control everything are the reason for the failure of the government," protesters explained. That Tuesday, only a handful of ministers were approved by the parliament, the voting couldn't be completed due to disruptive behaviour of a dozen Members of Parliament, throwing water bottles towards the Prime Minister and preventing him from speaking.
Occupation of parliament by Sadr-supporters