Iraq Project

Protests heighten political crisis

By Sam Wyer and Marisa Sullivan

These maps depict the anti-government and pro-government protests in Iraq from December 21, 2012 - January 11, 2013.

The apparent beginnings of a campaign to remove Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and the threat of a similar campaign against his most significant opponent suggest that Iraqi politics is entering a period of intense political jockeying.

Demonstrations, sit-ins, and acts of civil disobedience have been ongoing in Ramadi and Fallujah in Anbar province and in Samarra in Salah al-Din since December 23 in protest of Maliki’s arrest of bodyguards assigned to Finance Minister Rafi al-Issawi.

Iraq Finance Minister Rafi al-Issawi, a Sunni politician and member of the secular-Sunni Iraqiyya coalition, called for a vote of no confidence against Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in an evening press conference on December 20, 2012.