Abadi tested by reaction to Iraqi reforms

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Power play: Mr Abadi has to contend with the political influence that Mr Maliki, his predecessor, wields in the Dawa party

Three months after promising sweeping reforms, Iraq’s prime minister is battling opposition that threatens his authority and the fight against Isis.

As Iraqi troops move closer to retaking Isis-held Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, Haider al-Abadi issued a statement saying the fight against corruption, the focus of his reforms, had begun and would continue.

But the reforms, announced after a summer of public protests against corruption and inefficiency, have suffered a setback. The Iraqi parliament backed the measures unanimously in August but this month demanded more consultation.

One measure, involving sweeping cuts to civil service salaries, has drawn criticism from the Shia religious leadership and even from Mr Abadi’s own Dawa party.

“There are two sources of opposition,” says Sa’ad al-Hadithi, the prime minister’s spokesman. “Some of the people whose interests have been hurt because their privileges have been cut and the corruption mafias who have good relations with politicians.”

Some of the reforms already in place, among them scrapping the posts of vice-president and deputy prime minister, are being challenged on constitutional grounds. Nouri al-Maliki, the former prime minister, whose own position as vice-president was abolished, is a leading critic. Mr Maliki holds a more senior position, and has a broader political base, in the Shia Dawa party than the UK-educated Mr Abadi.

Many of the measures, including cuts to the benefits of MPs and senior officials, have attracted widespread public support. Salaries for MPs, totalling about $ 30,000 a month including security allowances and other benefits, are among the most generous in the world.

But planned cuts to the pay of hundreds of thousands of civil servants, including professors, doctors and office workers, have left many feeling as if they are paying for years of mismanagement and corruption. The redistribution increased salaries slightly for the lowest paid government workers. Mr Abadi has since rolled back some of the more sweeping cuts.

Farhad Alaaldin, political adviser to Fuad Masum, the Iraqi president, says: “A lot of people see corruption as the main factor in everything that happened to Iraq, including Isis, the corruption in the security apparatus, the financial system and so on. The reform should have targeted corruption and made it the priority.”

The reforms eliminated six ministries, consolidated others and cut more than 300 senior positions. MPs complain the cuts were imposed without explanation.

“We didn’t block the reforms,” says Masoud Hayder, a member of the parliamentary finance committee. “We withdrew the power that we gave to Mr Abadi because his behaviour was unconstitutional . . . Abadi is neglecting parliament.”

Falling oil prices, the costly war against Isis and dwindling currency reserves have left Iraq facing its biggest financial and economic crisis since 2003. They have also left Mr Abadi, a little more than a year into his leadership, trying to navigate treacherous political territory.

“His biggest challenge is the feud within his own party,” says a senior government official who asked to remain anonymous. “The Dawa party is divided in terms of who they should back — between Maliki, who still thinks that permission needs to be taken from him, and Abadi.”

MPs, attuned for perhaps the first time since 2003 to public sentiment, say sentiment has shifted. “Because of the huge protests at the time and the big pressure on parliament, we told Abadi to go ahead,” says Ammar Tauma, director of al-Fadhila, an influential Shia party. “But the decision to lower salaries has turned the street against Abadi again.”

The prime minister also appears to be in danger of losing the crucial public backing of the Shia leadership. Support for the reforms from the normally reticent Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani made it almost impossible for cabinet and parliament to oppose the measures. But mosque sermons in recent weeks have criticised the salary cuts.

A visit by Mr Abadi to the Shia holy city of Najaf with the aim of placating the clerics last week appears to have backfired. Mr Abadi met three of the four leading religious scholars but he did not see Mr Sistani.

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An anti corruption demonstration in Karbala, August 2015

His advisers say he had not intended to see the revered cleric but the move was widely seen as either a snub by the ayatollah or a sign that the prime minister lacked political acumen.

“Sistani and the marjaia [Shia religious leadership] in general are extremely upset with him because they have backed him in a way they haven’t backed any other politician,” says an Iraqi official. “They don’t want to be seen as the people who are responsible for hardship.”

Most politicians believe that in the absence of a viable replacement Mr Abadi will remain prime minister. But it will become even more difficult for him to implement significant reforms.

Mr Hayder, an MP of the Kurdish Gorran party, says: “Mr Abadi can be a good manager for an institution, a company, but he isn’t a good leader. A good leader has charisma, a grasp of economic reform and decisions that are made on a stable and solid basis.”