BAGHDAD — Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) leader Sheikh Jalal al-Din al-Saghir withdrew from the ISCI on June 30, thus becoming the third leader to defect, following former Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi and former Finance Minister Baqir al-Zubaidi, who left the ISCI this year for reasons related to controversy over the way the leadership was handling things.

Noteworthy is that these three leaders are the most prominent in the ISCI and helped establish it after it was founded in Iran by Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim in the 1980s. This show that things have been changing within the ISCI under its current leader Ammar al-Hakim, who initiated a new vision about a year ago to pump young blood into the ISCI.

ISCI members refrained from talking to the media about the recent withdrawals. But Saghir told Al-Monitor that for about a year now, he has been consulting religious authorities in Najaf and taking their opinions into account, noting that he took the decision some time ago but he did not announce it in light of the political attacks that targeted him following his February 2016 speech about austerity. The speech, which he claims was cut and edited, went viral and became known as the “Nestle issue” after he called on Iraqis not to eat chocolate bars — known by the generic term "nestle" among Iraqis — to save money. Thus he decided to wait and not be hasty in taking a decision under pressure from the parties that attacked him.

Saghir refused to go into details about the reasons why he withdrew from the ISCI but said, “We noticed that the ISCI was no longer abiding by the methods of Shahid al-Mouhareb [Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim] and Aziz al-Iraq [Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim]. We are no longer able to keep up with the new approach, which is completely different from ISCI’s original method and foundation. Our decision stems from a clear doctrinal stance and there is no going back. Many important figures withdrew from the ISCI and others will follow.”