Shia preacher who opposed US-led invasion and led uprisings against troops has taken a surprise lead in Iraq’s parliamentary elections

The influence of Moqtada al-Sadr, the 44-year-old Shia cleric whose Sairoon coalition has emerged as a leading player on Iraq’s political scene, is as much about his family name as his personality, theological learning or political acumen.

Sadr first came to prominence as a preacher in the weeks after the US invasion of Iraq, in 2003, opposing the US-led occupation. His militant followers, including the Mahdi army, were responsible for attacks on US and British soldiers, fuelled violent sectarianism against Iraq’s Sunni Muslims, and dabbled in protection rackets and kidnapping.

To enable this, his movement effectively exploited the network set up by his father, Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, who was assassinated in 1999 during the period of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship.

In person, his rivals have confided to journalists, Moqtada al-Sadr is not regarded as particularly impressive, with the epithet “firebrand” acting as a cover for instability and the shortcomings in his clerical education.

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Increasingly, however, it is Sadr’s relationship with Tehran that has come to define his political identity. While his Mahdi army was once regarded as being heavily reliant on Iranian-supplied expertise, Sadr has now positioned himself as an opponent of Iranian influence – at least when his rivals such as Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani are involved.

Like his father, who saw Sistani as an “Iranian” interloper, Sadr is an Iraqi Arab nationalist. The family has long seen themselves as representing a rival Iraqi seat of Shia learning and influence to Tehran. This has recently seen Sadr reach out to Saudi Arabia, reportedly to give reassurance that Iraq will not simply be another client of Iran.

The latest reinvention of his image is as populist as ever. In 2015, he formed an alliance with the Iraqi Communist party and secular groups under an umbrella of security and corruption concerns, two issues that have long dogged day-to-day Iraqi life, and his constituency.

Several parties, including those following Sadr’s leadership, have committed themselves to a vision of a non-sectarian and technocratic government. But the history of Iraq’s past decade and a half – and Sadr’s disruptive role in it – suggests that only time will tell.