Coordination Framework endorses government corruption campaign

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s Coordination Framework, the Shia alliance that dominates parliament, endorsed the government’s anti-corruption campaign on Monday at a meeting attended by Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi.

The bloc’s participants voiced “support and endorsement for the government and judicial steps” aimed at restoring confidence in the political process, its media office said, and called for the effort to continue until state institutions were purged of “the corrupt and negligent.” The meeting was held at the office of National Approach Alliance leader Abdul Hussein al-Mousawi.

The Coordination Framework is the country’s main governing alliance and the bloc to which several of those swept up in the campaign belong. Formed after the 2021 election, it became the dominant force in parliament after cleric Muqtada al-Sadr withdrew his bloc in 2022.

The meeting followed Sunday’s operation, in which authorities said dozens of current and former officials were arrested in what the government has called the first phase of a wider campaign. State media said the arrests were based on confessions by detained Deputy Oil Minister Adnan al-Jumaili, and that the 15 names released so far were the first group in an investigation it said involved 47 detainees. Jumaili was detained earlier this month over alleged financial irregularities in the oil sector.