What next for Iraq as fiery cleric Al Sadr heads to victory?

Cleric could now push his nationalist agenda that has seen him pledge to curb foreign meddling

Asurprise election vitory for fiery Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr seems to have shaken Iraq’s political landscape at the expense of both the Iranian and American influence in the country.

The populist Shiite cleric, a firebrand who once battled US troops and now opposes Tehran, has cobbled together a broad technocrat coalition tasked with rooting out Iraq’s endemic corruption.

But can he really sideline powerful foreign players and domestic rivals to take control?

While Al Sadr’s unlikely Marching Towards Reform alliance with Iraq’s communists looks on course to be the biggest group in parliament, it faces many obstacles.

The movement has pitched itself as a challenge to Iraq’s entrenched elite and ridden popular protests over graft to drum up support.

Under article 76 of Iraq’s constitution, the right to form a government falls to the political bloc with the most seats.

Al Sadr — who has ruled himself out of becoming PM — should be the key powerbroker and is already eyeing a coalition of around a dozen groups to reach a majority.

However, with months of wrangling expected ahead, it remains far from certain that he will get the chance to realise his ambitions.

At elections in 2010, the Iraqi National Movement of Ayad Allawi — loathed by Iran — scooped 91 seats to become the biggest group in parliament.

Union between blocs

But after much manoeuvring, Allawi was eventually bested by Nouri Al Maliki, as Tehran helped engineer a union between two leading Shiite blocs to give him more seats.

Strengthened by his apparent victory in Saturday’s polls, Al Sadr could now push his nationalist agenda that has seen him pledge to curb foreign meddling in Iraq.

After the 2003 invasion, his militia battled US forces. He is now calling for the latest deployment of American troops to leave following last year’s defeat of Daesh.

While his family of religious scholars historically has close ties with the Islamic revolutionaries in Iran and he spent years living there, Al Sadr has now fallen out with Tehran and wants its overbearing influence slashed.

In a sign that he is angling to chart a different course, he visited regional Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia last year.

Al Sadr faces a difficult act to herd together enough groups from across Iraq’s fragmented political spectrum to form a government.

He has extended a hand to a wide spread of parties, including the bloc of current Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi that lies in third place according to latest results. Whether he can convince Al Abadi to turn his back on his former stablemates and team up remains a major question.