In Baghdad Nermeen Al-Mufti asks Iraqis what they make of the forthcoming polls Haider Al-Maliki, a trader in Al-Qarada district in Baghdad, will vote for the "candle". The candle stands for the Unified Iraqi Coalition, a coalition of 285 candidates which is said to be supported by Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani. "There are too many names on the list that it becomes difficult to recognise them. It is easier to refer to those electoral lists by the symbols they chose," Al-Maliki told Al-Ahram Weekly. Indeed with only two weeks before the vote, the majority of Iraqi voters remain confused about who the candidates are and what political platforms they were promoting. Some do not even know whether this election is to select a national council or a president. Others don't even bother to read the names of the unknown candidates who have become a target for Iraqi press cartoonists. Instead, they go by the logos. So with the candle comes the minaret of Samaraa's Grand Mosque as the symbol of the Independent Democrats Coalition headed by veteran Iraqi diplomat Adnan Pachachi, while the Iraqi Communist Party chose its logo to be a hand wearing a wedding ring. There is also the rose, the bridge and many other symbols. A heated controversy broke out earlier this week when the Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi accused some candidates of deliberately invoking religious symbols to influence the voters' choice. He pointed finger at the candidates of the list headed by Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim, commonly known as the Shia list, for using the picture of Iraq's grand religious authority Al-Sistani in their electoral posters. According to Iraq's Independent Elections Commission an estimate of 15 million Iraqis are eligible to vote on elections day. The commission's most optimistic scenario suggests that almost half of this figure will show up on ballot boxes. Violence continues to be the order of the day as the countdown to the polls began, observers anticipate that the lethality of the attacks is likely to reach its peak on elections day. Despite the worsening security situation, some Iraqi voters insist that they will turn up on the day. While Al-Maliki is well aware of the risks which entails the voting process, he, nonetheless, is determined to cast his vote. "It's a question of luck. A small group of them can't target all the voting stations. I'm going because Al-Sayid Al-Sistani said that whoever doesn't vote is going to hell. If the station I'm voting at is attacked then, God willing, I'll die a martyr," Al-Maliki said. Others, however, decided to be among Iraq's non-voters. "I have heard of Pachachi but I don't know the other names on his list," Adnan Omar, a university student said. Most of them, he continued, "have come from abroad and we don't know anything about them. So why should I give my life for someone I don't know, when I know that things are only going to get worse after the elections," Omar added. But some Iraqis expressed their frustration with the lack of any educational material on the elections. A poll conducted by Al-Mada newspaper and published on Sunday revealed some shocking results when it polled a sample of 300 Iraqis in Al-Sadr City only to discover that almost 100 per cent of those polled had no idea that elections were to be held in the country. The percentage is the highest among the women. But Al-Sadr, a poverty-stricken suburb has many likes in other parts of Iraq. "The electoral commission, says one Iraqi teacher, didn't explain why are we having elections now, it just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on posters and television adverts that said things like 'vote for Iraq'. So if ignorance of the political process is going to keep some from voting, security is the main reason why the majority of Iraqis are unlikely to turn up for the vote." The latest estimate on this comes from General Thomas Metz, the commander of US ground forces who reiterated that four out of Iraq's 18 provinces "remain too unsafe for many to vote". Those provinces include Baghdad, Falluja, Mosul and Tikrit and they are home to almost 40 per cent of the Iraqi population. Some Iraqis still harboured misgivings about the ability of many of the candidates particularly those who are already part of the political class -- to deliver on their promises. "I was surprised to see that all of them insisted that they would provide public services immediately, whilst many of those very candidates are current officials and ministers who failed miserably while in power," Rand Salihi, a lawyer told the Weekly. "Elections law forbids buying votes and bribery, but aren't these manifestos a way of buying votes? Why didn't they provide these services over these last two years. It's been an exhausting time for Iraq and Iraqis and we still don't know how long we must endure this pain," Salihi added. The Independent Elections Commission announced that there will be 5,220 centres set up, excluding Al-Anbar governorate (which includes the town of Falluja), managing approximately 29,000 voting booths. According to the commission spokesman Farid Ayar, there will be 1,454 centres, and 8,081 booths in Baghdad alone. This week Iraqi officials revealed what was described as the security plan which will be implemented on vote day. According to the plan areas close to the polling stations will be designated closed areas where no cars will be allowed to enter and thus lowering the risk of suicide attempts. Meanwhile, the streets of Baghdad and other towns, have been turned into a battlefield for a different kind of battle, the battle of posters, from those warning Iraqis "Do not approach: Deadly force is authorised" to the more coloured posters and signs of electoral candidates. They are plastered on the barriers-bearing slogans calling for mass participation in the elections. The cost of one of those coloured posters is enough to feed a hungry child for days. The cost of the television commercial which portrays the Iraqi premiere as the new strong man of Iraq, could provide food and cloth for a five- person Iraqi family for one year.
