In Baghdad, Iraqis talk ballot box not holy war

By Michael Georgy

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Graffiti in west Baghdad’s rebel
Aadhamiya district calls for holy war, not elections, but the
mood there and on streets across the city was the opposite on
the eve of Thursday’s parliamentary poll.

Although Iraqi and U.S. officials have warned of Sunni Arab
violence to sabotage the election, the atmosphere seemed much
less tense than in the bloody run-up to a previous election in
January.

On a main road in Sunni Aadhamiya, deserted on the first of
three days of a national traffic ban, teenagers broke off from
a soccer game on the tarmac to voice support for former prime
minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shi’ite whose strongman image
cuts across Iraq’s violent sectarian lines.

“Iyad Allawi. Iyad Allawi. Iyad Allawi. We want Allawi,”
said Ahmed Khaled as he and his friends chanted and jumped up
and down. “He is a hero and I am a wrestling champion.”

Iraqi security forces and soldiers, who have lost thousands
of comrades to suicide bombings, were confident of a smooth
election that will lead to the formation of the first full-term
government since Saddam Hussein’s fall in 2003.

“We know there could be bombings but we’re not worried as
everyone is voting,” said Amin Ali Hussein, 22, an army special
forces soldier manning a checkpoint across town from Aadhamiya.

Arab Sunnis, who boycotted the January elections, are
expected to vote in large numbers in a bid to gain influence in
a post-war political landscape dominated by Shi’ites and Kurds.

Iraq’s Shi’ite and Kurdish leaders and their U.S. allies
hope the election will defuse the insurgency by drawing large
numbers of Sunnis into peaceful politics.

SOLDIERS TALK DEMOCRACY

In a dramatic shift, some guerrillas have encouraged Sunnis
to vote and warned al Qaeda militants to refrain from attacking
polling stations or they will face retaliation.

“Nothing will happen. We are not worried,” said Abed Ali,
25, casually holding his AK-47 assault rifle as fellow Interior
Ministry special forces checked if motorists had permission to
drive during an election ban.

Unlike the days of Saddam, when a vote against him could
lead to imprisonment or worse, Iraqi troops were throwing
around the term democracy with some abandon.

Some said they wanted Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a
Shi’ite Islamist, to return to power. Their tough-talking
commander supports Allawi but he declined to say why.

“It’s no problem. This is a democracy,” said the commander,
Muhammed Rashid, in Baghdad’s Karada district.

Election posters wallpaper the streets across the city,
many taking advantage of the ugly concrete blast walls that
ring public buildings to protect them from car bombs.

Security. Jobs. Services. Education — just some of the
promises on display. They seem to have raised hopes.

“I think the election will open some doors,” said Mukhalas
Ali, 30, a welder in Aadhamiya, where Sunni insurgents have
long defied the interim government’s forces and U.S. troops.

At the local army headquarters, U.S. troops in Humvee
patrol vehicles passed by Iraqi soldiers protecting the gates
to what was once one of Saddam’s palaces.

A senior Iraqi officer yelled at one of his men when he
tried to discuss the elections. But he was ignored.

“We have to get rid of these militias,” said soldier
Youssef Jabor, referring to groups loyal to the government,
which denies accusations it condones militias death squads
against Sunnis.

A better standard of living and working conditions were
also key demands: “This government makes us pay for our own
truck tires when they’re punctured,” Jabor complained.

“They haven’t spent a cent on us. If this is really a
democracy then we can say what we want.”