Democracy has allowed “thieves” to plunder and pillage Iraq, the secretary of Hizbullah said in an interview on Saturday, Al-Arabiya news reported.

“The drawback of a democratic system is that it allows thieves to pillage what they want,” Wathiq al-Battat was quoted by the Cairo- based Al-Sharqiya News as saying.

“We have yet to see a successful system governing Iraq,” he said, adding that only an Islamic system of governance, based on the Sharia, could successfully lead Iraq.

“People of other religions can have their representatives in this system,” he said.

Battat proposed holding a referendum in which Iraqis could be asked whether they wanted the Sharia to be implemented or preferred the continuance of a “fake democracy.”

He described the latter as a “hotbed” for “thieves”, run by those who sold Iraq.

However, he opposed the current campaign to unseat the country’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki who is increasingly being described as “dictator,” and said that a no-confidence vote would bring Iraq back to “square one.”

He added that only citizens would bear the burden of such a campaign.

“In the past, political disputes would focus on quotas but now it’s personal differences,” he said, describing “the real weakness in the current Iraqi regime is that parties who have authority are weak and not strong.” (IsraelNationalNews © 2012 06/11/12)