Iraq's primary Shiite political parties said on Sunday that they support Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's plan to reform the government and bring an end to corruption. Reuters quoted Iraqi state TV which reported that the National Alliance, an electoral coalition of Shiite Islamist parties who hold most of the seats in the Iraqi parliament, issued a statement which read, "The National Alliance affirms its position of support of the reforms and ministerial change that the Prime Minister has called for." Their statement came after a meeting between Abadi and the representatives in Karbala. The meeting included representatives from Abadi's own governing Dawa party and representatives from Ammar al-Hakim and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. The cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the Sadrist movement, was also there. He threatened on Friday to have his followers forcibly topple the government if it did not enact its reforms as promised. One of Abadi's reform plans, announced last month, seeks to weaken the current parliamentary system which appoints ministers on the basis of their ethno-sectarian background by replacing those ministers with technocrats. The Sunnis and the Kurds have accused Abadi's predecessor Nouri al-Maliki of sidelining them in the political process
