Iraq Shiite leaders ‘refuse to meet politicians’

AFP, Najaf, Iraq, 24 Sept 2011 – Iraq’s top Shiite religious leaders have decided to stop meeting with the country’s politicians in anger over failed promises and a lack of improvement in daily life, a spokesman said on Saturday.
Sheikh Ali Bashir al-Najafi, a son of one of the marjaiya, the top Shiite Muslim council in Iraq, did not say when the decision was taken, or how long it would remain in place.
‘Because the politicians are not fulfilling their promises to improve life in Iraq, and because they have not followed the recommendations of the religious authorities, the religious authority … decided not to receive any politician,’ Najafi told AFP.
Najafi is the son of Grand Ayatollah Bashir al-Najafi, one of four members of the marjaiya, all of whom live in the holy city of Najaf. The other three are Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani, Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Said al-Hakim and Grand Ayatollah Ishaq al-Fayadh.
His remarks come a day after Sistani’s spokesman in the shrine city of Karbala, Abdul Mehdi al-Karbalai, criticised politicians during a Friday sermon for not following the advice of the marjaiya.
‘Some politicians say, ‘we need the advice of the supreme marjaiya, of Sistani’, and we say that the advice from a wise character is not enough if no one follows this advice,’ Karbalai said.
‘All what they (Iraqi politicians) represent today is just party, factional, regional selfishness. So what is the benefit of presenting advice? In the end, it will not be followed.’
He added: ‘This is the reason that a country that is powerful, in terms of its fortune and its people, is weak like Iraq.’
Since February, several cities have seen periodic protests over poor public services, such as water and electricity, rampant corruption and a lack of jobs.