One of the most senior politicians in Iraq has promised a ”radical change” in the country’s security forces after this week’s election and said officers with Ba’athist links would be removed.
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim (54) heads an alliance of Shia Muslim candidates that is widely expected to win the vote. Although Hakim is not thought to want the job of prime minister, he and his party will be instrumental in shaping the new government and its policies.
One of the party’s demands is that the United States military set a timetable for withdrawal.
In an interview at his office in Baghdad, Hakim openly criticised the US for allowing Iraq to descend into a security crisis. US commanders depended too much ”on the criminals from the former regime”, he said, in a reference to former Ba’athist police and military officers who have returned to their jobs in recent months.
His party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), had its own militia, the 15 000-strong Badr Brigade, which Hakim led. It is possible that more fighters from the militia may be incorporated into Iraq’s security forces.
Many Sunni Muslims are wary of Hakim and his links with Iran, where he lived in exile for more than 20 years. But in public Hakim speaks like a moderate. He said his party would offer seats in the government to Sunni leaders, even if, as expected, the violence in their regions means that few from their community vote.
”We insist on that, whether they have got full representation or not, because they are our brothers,” Hakim said. ”We believe in two principles in this phase: agreement and participation. We insist that all should participate.”
He said he wanted a ”democratic government”. He did not want an Iranian-style Islamic state but there should be ”respect for the Islamic identity.”
”And we should not apply laws that are inconsistent with Islam,” he added.
He hinted that he would not take a leadership position. But his deputies, such as the current finance minister Adil Abdul-Mehdi, are likely to take important Cabinet positions instead.
Dozens of members of the Hakim family were killed under Saddam Hussein, and the party spent long years fighting the regime. However, Iraqis since the war have greeted them with as much suspicion as admiration.
Hakim was born into a respected clerical family in the holy Shia city of Najaf, but then spent more than 20 years living in exile in Tehran. His party cultivated strong links with the Iranian government and their militia even fought alongside Iranian troops against Iraqis in the war of the 1980s.
At the time, Sciri advocated a deeply conservative political Islamism that endorsed Ayatollah Khomeini’s wilayat al-faqih, or governance of the jurisprudent — effectively rule by the clerics.
Yet since the war these views appear to have changed. Hakim held a seat in the US-appointed governing council, although he also criticised US policy. His deputies are well represented in the current interim government.
”The political programme of the Shia list is more moderate than you might expect,” said a senior British official in Baghdad. ”Is there a risk that in the emotion of an overwhelming victory some of that will be swept away and you will get Khomeini-style laws introduced? I don’t think that is very likely.”
Hakim is a reserved and intensely private figure. Although not a cleric, he dresses in a black cloak and grey robe and wears a black turban, the sign of a Syed, a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.
In his offices overlooking the Tigris hangs a portrait of his brother Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, who was killed along with more than 100 others in a suicide bombing in Najaf in August 2003. Twice in the past month suicide bombers have attacked the party’s offices.
US officials say they do not expect a drastic change in the relationship between the Iraqi government and the US military after the election. Of the pledge to demand troop withdrawal, a US embassy official said: ”I don’t think that will stay.”
Protections against single-party dominance in the current Constitution should force even parties such as Sciri to agree alliances and compromise. ”You are not going to have any one group dominate the government,” the US official said.
And despite his influence, Hakim and Sciri cannot presume to speak for all Shia. There is a significant secular trend in Iraq. Many Shia could be tempted to vote for Ayad Allawi, the current US-appointed prime minister and a secular Shia. Others even say privately that they will back moderate, pro-American Sunni candidates.
Some candidates, such as the Shia cleric Ayad Jamal al-Din, who lives on the same street as Hakim, are uncomfortable with the Islamist push for power.
”These people are using Islam as a means to win political gains,” said Din. He is running in the election on a secular slate. ”It has been proved in so many other countries that it does not work. If you look at the nature of our society, you will find it 100% secular.” – Guardian Unlimited Â