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Iraqi Shiite Party rises as Sadr falls
The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq aims to capitalize on the disarray within Moqtada al-Sadr's movement ahead of provincial elections planned for October.
By Sam Dagher | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the July 7, 2008 edition
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NAJAF, Iraq - At a teeming rally in this holy city last Thursday, thousands of Iraqi Shiites made an election pledge.
"We are at your beck and call, Hakim," they shouted in unison to Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), arguably now the country's most influential and best organized Shiite religious political party.
Mr. Hakim told the crowds stuffed inside a soccer stadium: "We call upon you to take part in the upcoming provincial council elections.... Choose competent and trustworthy candidates ... and beware of the return of Saddamists in disguise."
The rally to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the "martyrdom" of ISCI founder Muhammad Baqer al-Hakim, killed in a Najaf car bombing, effectively kicked off campaigning for the party ahead of provincial elections that are supposed to take place in October.
On Monday, the Iraqi speaker of parliament, Mahmoud Mashadani, announced that the electoral law will be put to a vote on July 15. “Time is running out.... This is the last chance we have" if we want to hold local elections on time, he said. If the law is approved, it will pave the way for provincial elections in October.
If the enthusiasm of the audience on Thursday was any indication, ISCI and its affiliates are poised to do well at the polls, a development that some fear would exacerbate a bitter intra-Shiite struggle for power between ISCI and its allies and the movement of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
"The Supreme Council and its allies are in the forefront now while the Sadrists are absent, but we can see signs already that the struggle among the Shiite religious parties will turn into a violent and armed one again, especially in the south," says Azer Naji, director of strategic and political studies at a research center at Basra University in southern Iraq.
"This may happen as we get close to the elections or even after the elections," he says.
Already Mr. Sadr's partisans and members of his Mahdi Army militia believe that ISCI and its affiliate party, the Badr Organization – previously known as the Badr Brigade and ISCI's armed wing – instigated the recent US-Iraqi military operations against the Mahdi Army in southern Iraq and Baghdad. They allege it was part of an ISCI/Badr plot to dismantle Sadr's organization ahead of elections.
On Friday, Sheikh Salim al-Darraji, an ISCI official based in Basra, was assassinated in a part of the city traditionally controlled by Sadrists. It comes one week after Basra's chief of military intelligence was killed in a predominantly Shiite part of eastern Baghdad.
The ultimate goal of ISCI and Badr is to consolidate their grip on southern Iraq and to create a nine-province Shiite region on par with the semiautonomous Kurdish region in the north. This is a subject of great controversy among many Iraqis, including the Sadrists.
"We believe the elections are extremely important. We will run jointly with (ISCI). We both have a significant base of public support," says Hadi al-Ameri, Badr's leader and a senior member of the Iraqi parliament.
Mr. Ameri's announcement marks a stark departure from ISCI's strategy during the January and December 2005 elections when it was the pivotal player in assembling a grand Shiite coalition, known as the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA). That bloc swept the largest number of seats in parliament and ushered into power the Shiites and Kurds, who came in second.
At that time, Mr. Hakim brought Sadr into the coalition in the second round of elections. Sadr's partisans clinched 32 seats and were instrumental in the selection of Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister. In the end, the Sadrists received six cabinet posts.
But acrimonious intra-Shiite disputes precipitated the UIA's unraveling last year. First, the Fadhila Party quit, then Sadrist ministers left the government in April and the UIA altogether in September.
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