This smaller pro-al-Abadi group is also opposed to allowing Russian air strikes against the extremist Islamic State group inside Iraq and they consider senior Iraqi cleric, Ali al-Sistani, their spiritual leader.
The former anti-al-Abadi group has far more members and is led by al-Maliki. It is opposed to the proposed reforms and the National Guard and is critical of the international coalition led by the US; it likes the idea of allowing Russian airstrikes in Iraq. Many believe this group leans more toward Iran as well.
Last week 60 MPs from the State of Law bloc accused al-Abadi of making decisions about issues like the anti-corruption reforms without consulting them and threatened to withdraw their support for him in Parliament.
This week news agency Reuters reported that part of that threat had been carried out: “Iraq's parliament voted unanimously ... to bar the government from passing important reforms without its approval in an effort to curb Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi amid discontent over his leadership style”. Many of those who signed the letter were al-Maliki supporters.
Al-Abadi himself denied the criticisms last week, saying that decisions about reform were only made after wide consultation. But it is also clear that most of the Iraqi Prime Minister's support is coming from Shiite Muslim politicians outside of his own party – he is supported by MPs from the Sadrist bloc, headed by the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and by those associated with the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, led by another younger cleric, Ammar al-Hakim. But recently even these supporters have been criticising al-Abadi.
Sunni Muslim politicians also seem to be becoming more critical of al-Abadi's methods. After a meeting of the Union of National Forces, a body that represents all of the Sunni Muslim parties in Iraq this week, the group released a statement in which it said that it too was seriously considering withdrawing support for al-Abadi. However they had very different reasons for criticising al-Abadi.
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