By Xinhua,
Baghdad : The followers of anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr will not field candidates under their own political movement but will support any qualified and independent candidate, a Sadr aide said on Sunday.
Sheik Salah al-Obeidi, Sadr’s spokesman in the holy Shiite city of Najaf said “the Sadr political movement is not boycotting the (provincial) elections but we call on our followers to vote for independent candidates even if they are from other party lists.”
“I confirm that we support participating in the election expected in the fall and we want our followers to vote freely on whoever suitable professional and technocrat figures so that they may better serve our people,” Obeidi told Xinhua by telephone.
Obeidi said that Sadr’s move aimed at avoiding bringing people to the provincial councils on political and sectarian bases.
“We will support whoever qualified for the provinces’ councils because we don’t want people work for their own parties and sects,” he said.
Provincial election is expected in October. The election is a key step set by Washington to bring stability to Iraq by giving more powers and better representation to local provincial councils.
Sadr’s announcement came two days after his decision of forming a special group to fight the U.S. forces in Iraq.
“The resistance of the occupiers will be carried out exclusively by a special group which I will declare later,” Sadr said in his statement read on his followers in Friday prayers in holy Shiite town of Kufa.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has frequently warned that any party which has armed militia would be barred from taking part in the upcoming elections.