Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi will step down only if parliament's main blocs can agree on his replacement, the country's president said on Thursday, but tens of thousands of protesters said his resignation would not be enough.
Peoples from across Iraq's sectarian and ethnic divides thronged Baghdad's Tahrir Square in a show of fury at an elite they see as deeply corrupt, beholden to foreign powers and responsible for daily privations and shambolic public services.
More than 250 people have beenkilled in clashes with security forces and paramilitary groups since protestsbegan on Oct. 1 and eventually swelled into the worst mass unrest in Iraq sincethe 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein.
Abdul Mahdi, who despite promisesof reforms and a broad reshuffle of his cabinet, has struggled to address thestreet's demands. He has refused calls for an early election made by hiserstwhile main supporter, populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
"The prime minister hadpreviously agreed to submit his resignation, if the blocs agree on anacceptable replacement in order to adhere to constitutional and legalframeworks," President Barham Salih said in a live televised address.
Abdul Mahdi said on Tuesday itwould be quicker if Sadr and his main rival Hadi al-Amiri agreed on areplacement, and would prevent months of chaos.
At the behest of Iran, which exerts great influence on Iraqi politics, Amiri rejected Sadr's push to oust Abdul Mahdi after meeting top militia commanders in his bloc on Wednesday, five sources with knowledge of the talks told Reuters.
While political elites jostled over Abdul Mahdi's fate, Iraqis on the streets demanded an end to the entire governing system of identity-based, sectarian power-sharing.
"Today we are at a stagewhere our demand ceiling is much higher than the prime minister's removal, Thepeople of Iraq want a complete overhaul of the political system," saidprotester Salman Khairallah, 27, who wore a tee-shirt emblazoned with "Wedream of a new Iraq".
"We want a pluralisticdemocracy that lifts this society from the pit we've been driven into for thepast 16 years."
But early elections cannot beheld until a new electoral law is passed, Salih said, adding that he expected abill to be introduced in parliament by next week.
