IRAQ: Rebel Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr will not take part in elections scheduled for January as long as US forces remain in the country, an aide said yesterday.
"We as Sadr's movement will not take part in the elections held under the shadow of occupation," Sheikh Abdul Hadi al-Daraji said. "Sadr's movement will not nominate any candidates," he added.
He also expected Sadr's followers to boycott the elections.
The announcement contradicts a previous statement by another Sadr aide, who in August said the Shi'ite cleric would field candidates and campaign on a platform calling for the withdrawal of US troops in Iraq.
Sadr has seen his popularity rise among nationalist clerics and a generation of poor Shi'ites after challenging the Iraqi government and US-led forces under his "no democracy under occupation" stand. After three weeks of fighting between Sadr's Mahdi army and US and Iraqi forces in the southern city of Najaf, Sadr agreed to a peace initiative brokered by Iraq's most influential religious leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
As part of the deal, Sistani pressured Sadr into agreeing to support the elections. But Daraji said any elections held under the occupation will not be fair.