[13] On Friday 31 July 2015, hundreds protested in capital Baghdad over the enduring problem of electricity power outages, which they blamed on government corruption.

On Saturday, 1 August, another protest was held in Basra, in front of the provincial governor's office, over frequent electricity blackouts and salty tap water (see above, section 'Long-running problems').

[19] On Friday 7 August 2015, several thousand protested at Baghdad's Tahrir Square, carrying Iraqi flags, chanting: "All of you together to the court, all of you are thieves".

[13] In a sermon during the Friday prayers delivered by his aide and spokesman Ahmed al-Safi in Karbala, ahead of the demonstration that day,[12] al-Sistani stated that Prime Minister Abadi needed to be "more daring and braver in his reforms" combatting the corruption in his government:[4] Abadi "should make the political parties accountable and identify who is hampering the march of reform, whoever they are", Mr al-Safi added.

[4] Two days later already, on 9 August, Abadi released a first package of reforms, including the abolition of a great number of non-essential government posts responsible for vast expenditures.

On 11 August, the Iraqi parliament, pressured by the mass protests and the appeals from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, unanimously approved Abadi’s reforms, and also announced their own plan to replace the system of awarding governmental positions to party loyals with professional recruitment criteria.

[13] After August 2015, weekly protests over perceived corruption and mismanagement and Baghdad's failure to provide basic services such as electricity held on, peacefully, into the next year.

In his call on 17 March, Sadr had branded the Green Zone "a bastion of support for corruption" but also asked his followers to refrain from violence should they be stopped by security forces.

"[23] Around 26 March 2016, Muqtada al-Sadr also started his own sit-in, inside the Green Zone, urging Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to do what he had announced in February: install a "government of independent technocrats" free of influence from "the political blocks" within parliament.

[5] Muqtada al-Sadr, Shia cleric and leader of political party Sadrist Movement, on Tuesday 26 April 2016 called on his supporters to show up again in Baghdad at the Green Zone, where the government and parliament are based, to "frighten" MPs from "powerful parties" unwilling to approve the cabinet's reshuffle, announced by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in February 2016 (see above), and "compel" them to accept the prime minister's reforms,[5] and again protest against the government’s failure to provide basic commodities like water and electricity.

[26] Hundreds of thousands of Sadr-followers that day gathered in Tahrir Square in Baghdad and marched towards the heavily-fortified Green Zone, chanting that politicians "are all thieves".

[22] Muqtada al-Sadr, Shia Islamic cleric and leader of the political party Sadrist Movement, in a televised news conference again condemnded the political deadlock, criticised the "corrupt [officials] and quotas" – backed later by Iraqi President Fuad Masum who agreed that "burying the regime of party and sectarian quotas cannot be delayed" – and stated that he was "waiting for the great popular uprising and the major revolution to stop the march of the corrupt".

[1] The protest movement this year was hardly[9] or not organised, and not united behind one clear goal or agenda; it consisted of at best loosely connected groups, often with (partly) different grievances or motivations.

[41][8] On 14 or 15 July, the Internet in the Iraqi Shi'ite heartland (the country south and east of Baghdad) was blocked by the authorities, to stop the spreading of the protests.

[38][9] Due to negotiations for a new government since the May 2018 general elections still dragging on, the money promised in July 2018 to help overcome Basra's urgent problems (see above) still hadn't materialised by September 2018.

"[18] Also the headquarters in Basra of most Iran-backed militia groups like Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, Badr Organisation and Kata'ib al-Imam Ali,[18][3] and of all further political parties connected to Iran,[15] were torched.

Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the largest coalition in parliament since the May 2018 elections, tweeted at Prime Minister Abadi: "quickly release Basra's money and give it to clean hands to start at once with (…) development projects".

The three-way-tensions in Basra between tribes, militias and government had for a long time been exacerbated by unclearness and confusion over the separation of competencies between the local and the federal authorities.