Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq - Politics

Politics

SIIC's support is strongest in Iraq's south especially Basra, where it has been said to have become "the de facto government."

It joined the United Iraqi Alliance list for the general election on January 30, 2005 (see Iraqi legislative election, 2005), but filed separate lists in some governorate council elections held on the same day (see for instance Ninawa governorate council election, 2005). In the January 2005 election it won six out of eight Shia-majority governorates and came in first in Baghdad with 40% of the vote. Following the election SIIC had many members hired by various government ministries, particularly the Interior Ministry, "ensuring a favorable position for" it.

Its administration in Southern Iraq has been criticized as corrupt and as "theocracy mixed with thuggery" According to a 2005 report by journalist Doug Ireland, the Badr Organization has been involved in many incidents of attacking and killing gays in Iraq. According to the British television Channel 4, from 2005 through early 2006, SIIC's Badr Organization members working as commandos in the Ministry of the Interior (which Badr controls) "have been implicated in rounding up and killing thousands of ordinary Sunni civilians."

Ideologically SIIC differs from Muqtada al-Sadr and its sometime ally Islamic Dawa Party, in favoring a decentralized Iraq state with an autonomous Shia zone in the south.