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Occasional protests took place in Iraq during the years 2015–2018, in Baghdad and more southern Iraqi  cities like Najaf, Nasriyah and Basra, over state corruption and political paralysis and deadlock, poverty, unemployment, power shortages, water shortages around Basra, failing public services, etc..2018: Water, electricity, jobs, corrupt political incompetence, Iran meddling, parties squabbling and stealing, oil companies plundering
Protest demonstrations, mostly around Basra but often through all southern and central Iraq (where Shia Islam is prevailing or strongly present) and in capital Baghdad, took place in 2018 since June  or since 9 July, until at least early December. In July 2018, a journalist counted 46 protests in Basra province within two weeks; in early September he counted 75 protests in Basra province in one week. This protest movement was hardly organised 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.
The main, and often shared, protesting cause was the failing of basic, public services like electricity supplies and clean drinking water, which many protesters considered to be a symptom of:
The incompetence and corruption of the federal as well as the local authorities.
A third, and connected, cause of protests was the very high unemployment in Iraq, especially under youths, who felt marginalized and cut out of opportunities by that same corrupt and clientelist political class and political economy.
Another (connected) cause of anger were the presumed, direct and indirect, negative influences of Iran on economy, living conditions, and political inertia and deadlocks and corruption in Iraq.
Furthermore, there was (connected) anger over the inability and/or unwillingness of the quarreling political parties in the newly elected parliament since the May 2018 general elections, especially the parties chosen by Iraq’s Shiite majority, to form a government and start heeding the many needs of the Iraqi population (even by late December 2018 the installation of a full cabinet was not completed); Shiite parties that often were presumed to be under Iranian influence and were presumed to be protecting their rifling personnel. Iraqi citizens often didn’t feel themselves heard nor represented by the Iraqi politicians; the only Member of Parliament known to have expressed solidarity with the protesters in 2018 was Muqtada al-Sadr.
Another stone of offence were the large, foreign, oil companies in southern Iraq, reaping enormous profits from Iraq's natural riches, profits that stayed out of reach and out of sight of the average Iraqi citizens, who were hardly even hired for work on the oil installations where the companies employed mostly foreign nationals rather than the local Iraqis around Basra, jobless and (as stated above) often deprived of basic supplies.Security forces shot dead their first protester this year in Basra on 8 July, which seems to have fueled the protesting mood and movement. By 20 July, already ten protesters had been killed, either by security forces or by (rivalling) civilian groups or individuals. By 8 September 2018, 20 protesters this year had died while protesting. Especially leading protest figures were assassinated, by security forces or unknown attackers: in September 2018 tribesman Makki Yassir al-Kaabi, in November sheikh Wessam al-Gharrawi, both near Basra. Apart from such armed violence, the authorities also tried to suppress the protests by blocking the Internet in southern Iraq.
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