Iraq

From The Times of London:

FOR decades, voting in Iraq meant taking part in a national exercise of state-enforced adulation, as 99 per cent of the electorate would dutifully turn out to tick the box beside the name Saddam Hussein.

Yesterday the contrast could not have been starker, as the campaign for Sunday’s elections picked up pace and voters were presented with a dizzying selection of dozens of candidates and parties.

Notwithstanding insurgent terror aimed at wrecking the polls, there is finally a palpable sense in Baghdad, and other Iraqi cities, that the country is entering a new era.

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While voters may be confused by the experiment in democracy, they cannot complain about a lack of choice. There is a Communist Party, with the message of a “free country and a happy people”, a monarchist movement pledging the restoration of the Hashemite dynasty, and even a party under the banner of Abdul Karim al-Qassim, the former brigadier-general who seized power in a military coup.

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Political pundits agree that three of the coalition lists will dominate Sunday’s polls. The United Iraqi Alliance, a loose collection of more than 100 parties supported by Ayatollah al-Sistani, is expected to win as much as 40 per cent of the vote, drawing on the support of the majority Shia population in central and southern Iraq and Sadr City, in Baghdad. Not only do Shias believe that they will finally win power after centuries as second-class citizens, they have also been told that voting is a religious duty.

In spite of the strong religious backing, the party has been at pains to emphasise that it supports secular politics and rejects any notion of an Iranian-style theocracy. To make the point that it is not bound to Islamic doctrine, it put up posters of a beautiful girl with long, flowing black hair that looked more like an advertisement for shampoo.

If you want to follow events on the ground in Iraq during the election, go here.