ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iraq’s powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Saturday said he was “prohibiting” the use of his name or his family’s name in campaigning for the upcoming parliamentary elections.

“It is forbidden, indeed prohibited, to use our name, the Sadr family… and it is absolutely forbidden to use my name, directly or indirectly, by implication or explicitly, from any party,” read a directive from Sadr on Saturday,

Sadr, who leads the National Shiite Movement, in March announced he will not be participating in the upcoming elections and called on his followers not to vote or run for office, citing ongoing “corruption” in the country.

“Our silence speaks volumes, and one of its meanings is that our silence about their corruption does not mean we are satisfied with them,” Sadr said in his Saturday statement.

Iraq is set to hold parliamentary elections on November 11, with more than 29 million voters eligible to cast their ballots in the upcoming polls.

Sadr announced his “definitive” retirement from politics in August 2022 after his attempts to form a national majority government was repeatedly block by the Coordination Framework.

Sadr’s withdrawal from the political process allowed the Coordination Framework to form the government within months and chose Sudani as the new prime minister.