A statement read by SIIC’s leader, 'Abd al-'Azeez al-Hakeem, confirmed earlier reports claiming that the powerful Shi'a party has decided to change its name and, more importantly, proclaim Ayatollah Sistani as the party’s main spiritual authority.
SIIC occupies 30 seats in the Iraqi parliament and is, along with the Sadr Current, the largest player in the ruling Shi'a coalition.
Al-Hakeem reiterated the argument claiming that the removal of the term “revolution” from the party’s name is due to the ousting of Saddam Husain “which made ‘revolution’ an outdated term,” al-Hakeem said.
Another SIIC leader, Rida Jawad Taqi, added, in the same press conference, that “the general committee has approved the renaming in accordance with the new political system in Iraq, which is based on the constitution.”
Taqi began his speech by praising the “supreme religious authority in Iraq, under the leadership of Ayatollah 'Ali al-Sistani” and vowed to “follow his guidance and path.”
Earlier leaks regarding SIIC’s reforms were based on the testimonials of unnamed leaders and lacked official confirmation. Several observers remained skeptical towards the alleged changes; today’s press conference should put such questions to rest.
In parallel, the media office of SIIC published a statement protesting the media’s use of “deformed statements attributed to the party’s leaders” and affirmed that the party’s new agenda “is not directed against anybody,” probably a reference to some analyses predicting that the party’s reforms indicate an aggressive rupture with Iran.
However, the statement did not deny any of the substantive changes discussed in earlier media reports, and was, if anything, a confirmation of these amendments.
SIIC’s move away from Khamena'i’s umbrella may have surprised observers (formerly, SCIRI’s constitution noted that the party follows the leadership of the institution of Wilayat al-Faqeeh, currently headed by Ayatollah 'Ali al-Khamena'i) especially that many of the core activists of SIIC consider themselves loyal followers to Ayatollah Khamena'i, but there are several facets to the issue.
On the one hand, only a fraction of Iraqi Shi'a follows Khamena'i and adopts his theory of Wilayat al-Faqeeh. No accurate statistics exist to confirm this opinion, but many observers consider Ayatollah Sistani to be the most widely followed religious authority in Iraq.
At the same time, SCIRI was founded in Iran, and hosted by the institutions of the Iranian Revolution. SCIRI’s early membership mainly consisted of Iraqis who fled to Iran, in the hundreds of thousands; many of whom sympathized with and supported the revolution and, as a result, followed the institution of Wilayat al-Faqeeh.
After the fall of Saddam’s regime and the return of many Iraqi exiles from Iran, a clear gulf was noticeable in the party’s ranks between those who returned from Iran propagating a Khomeinist version of activism, and SCIRI’s local supporters who felt alienated by the unfamiliar loyalties of their peers.
The same applies to the larger Shi'a public; Sadrist and Fadhila supporters also tend to follow Sistani, and Sunnis often critiqued the “Iranian” iconography of SCIRI and frequently accused the party of being a tool for the Iranian clerical establishment. In that sense, SIIC’s decision to distance itself from Khamena'i may be a well-calculated stratagem to promote the party among the Shi'a populace.
The press conference revealed another aspect of SIIC’s new strategy: Al-Hayat said that SIIC’s leaders made repeated calls for the creation of new “regions” in Iraq. The new Iraqi constitution allows the formation of quasi-autonomous “regions” through the grouping of several provinces into a single unit and the creation of local representative councils and a local government for the new entity.
This arrangement was thought to be tailored to fit Kurdish needs -- at the moment, Kurdistan is the only federal “region” in Iraq. But many voices warned that the constitutional article was, in effect, a prelude for a de facto division of Iraq between Shi'a, Kurdish and Sunni regions.
SIIC’s demands for the creation of a Shi'a “region” in the South and the Center of the country support the opinion that SIIC hopes to foment a version of “Shi'a nationalism” not unlike that of the Kurdish parties. Such a posture would distinguish the federalist SIIC from the Sadrists and Fadhila, who largely oppose federalism and the division of Iraq, and are active in pursuing an Iraqi nationalist platform.
