The alliance between Abadi’s Victory Alliance and Sadr’s Saeroon will “cross sectarian and ethnic divisions,” the leaders said at a news conference in the holy city of Najaf where Abadi travelled On Saturday to meet Sadr.

After three hours of talks they issued a joint statement announcing they had set up a coalition.

The statement said their alliance “transcends sectarianism and ethnic” issues “to speed up the formation of the new government and agree on the principles which serve the aspirations of our people”.

Earlier in June, Sadr and Hadi Al-Amiri, whose Fatih coalition came second in the election, had announced an alliance between their blocs.

It was not immediately clear if Saturday’s announcement meant the top three blocs would now work together. Abadi and Sadr said their alliance “doesn’t not mean the door is closed for the remaining blocs” to join them.

Al-Sadr and al-Abadi announced their new alignment at a news conference Saturday, without making explicit mention of the coalition with al-Amiri. But al-Abadi said the coalition with al-Sadr was "in harmony" with existing alignments.