Abadi refuses to retire from Iraqi politics, presents national project

Haider al-Abadi’s remarks to continue his political career alone comes after the Dawa Party recently urged both Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law Coalition and Abadi’s al-Nasr to unite.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The outgoing Iraqi prime minister and head of the al-Nasr (Victory) Coalition, Haider al-Abadi, refuses to retire from politics after losing his shot at a second term in office to the current Prime Minister-designate Adel Abdul Mahdi.

Abadi, Iraq’s outgoing prime minister, said in a statement on Thursday that he would not leave politics regardless of any executive position granted to him in the new government.

“The victory project is for all of the Iraqis, and we believe in victory as a national project,” Abadi said, noting he would adopt the project and work toward it in the Iraqi political process.

“We will reproduce al-Nasr Coalition as a national project that best suits the current and future developments,” he added.

“I will not retire from politics, regardless of the position granted to me,” Abadi stated. “The important thing is the safety of al-Nasr’s project to achieve unity, prosperity, and sovereignty for the country as well as building state institutions and fighting corruption.”

He added that his next choices would include having the al-Nasr bloc in the parliament and as a political entity outside of the parliament.

Abadi is the Secretary of the Political Bureau of the Islamic Dawa Party. The Dawa Party has been Iraq’s ruling party since 2006.

Abadi’s remarks to continue his political career alone comes after the Dawa Party recently urged both Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law Coalition and Abadi’s Nasr to unite and have a joint vision and program.

Abadi took office in 2014 after Maliki was in power for eight years.

Due to the ongoing disputes between Maliki and Abadi, and each participating in the May 12 parliamentary elections separately, Dawa lost its grip of the Iraqi prime minister role to another Shia figure, Abdul Mahdi, outside of the party.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany