A member of Iraqi riot police rests as followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr prepare to end their sit-in outside the heavily guarded Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, March 31, 2016.

Ali Allawi, who Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi nominated last week to serve as finance minister in a new technocrat government, withdrew his candidacy on Wednesday, citing “political interventions and partisan bickering.”

A letter dated April 6, which a source in Allawi’s office and Kurdish officials confirmed as authentic, said political infighting “will certainly abort the radical and comprehensive reform project,” which Abadi has been advocating.

Allawi is at least the second ministerial candidate to pull out. The nominee for oil minister withdrew on Friday, apparently because he had not been formally put forward by the main Kurdish groups.

Abadi presented parliament on Thursday with a list of 14 names, many of them academics, to free the ministries from the grip of a political class that has used the system of ethnic and sectarian quotas instituted after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 to amass wealth and influence through corruption.

The move, which threatens to weaken patronage networks that sustain the elite’s wealth and influence, shocked the political establishment that has ruled Iraq since the removal of Saddam Hussein.

Allawi said in a letter dated April 6, which was circulated online and confirmed as authentic by a source in Allawi’s office and Kurdish officials, that political infighting “will certainly abort the radical and comprehensive reform project,” which Abadi has been advocating.

Allawi, a U.S.-educated former banker, has already served as finance minister once following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Parliament said on March 31 it would take 10 days to review Abadi’s nominations, most of whom are not well known and were chosen without consulting the political parties. Lawmakers and analysts expect parliament to reject up to half the list.

Related articles across the web

• Iraqis step up protests against 'corrupt elite' as senior political figures flee Baghdad's Green Zone
• Shi'ite Cleric Rallies Thousands in Baghdad
• 26 people killed in suicide bombing at soccer match in Iraq
• Thousands Stage Anti-Government Protests In Baghdad
• Iraq PM to nominate 9 technocrats to ministerial posts
• Powerful Iraqi Cleric Vows Stepped Up Protests If Reforms Blocked
• Suicide bomber hits stadium in Iraqi city, killing 29
• Suicide attack kills dozens at football stadium in Iraq
• Sadr threatened the House of Representatives who abstain from voting for the reforms will be a lesson
• Iraqi Shiite leader threatens unrest if reforms blocked