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In Baghdad, Iraqis talk ballot box not holy war

Posted on: Wednesday, 14 December 2005, 07:32 CST

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."

Source: REUTERS

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