Nearly a week before the May 12 elections, Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric Ali al-Sistani called on Friday the people to prevent the return of “corrupt” figures to power. During his Friday prayers, he told Iraqis they should “avoid falling into the trap of those ... who are corrupt and those who have failed, whether they have been tried or not”. Sistani, whose opinion is sacrosanct for millions in Iraq’s Shi’ite Muslim majority and beyond, said he was keeping an “equal distance” from all candidates and did not identify any of them by name in his sermon, read by one of his envoys, Sheikh Abdulmehdi al-Karbalai, and broadcast on television. “Past electoral experiments were marked by failures, many of those who were elected or appointed to high positions in the government abused their power and took part in spreading corruption and squandering public money,” Sistani also said. The May 12 election is shaping up as a three-way contest between current PM Haidar al-Abadi, former PM Nouri al-Maliki and Hadi al-Amiri, a former transportation minister and head of the Badr paramilitary organization. Abadi was quick to welcome Sistani’s sermon, tweeting his “total support for the instructions given by the Supreme Religious Reference at Friday prayers.” The election victor will face daunting tasks of rebuilding the war-shattered country and a battle against entrenched corruption that is eating away at its oil revenue. Baghdad says at least $100 billion will be needed to reconstructing houses, businesses and infrastructure destroyed in the war.