A Stealth Campaign

Americans, who have just endured the endless 2004 presidential campaign in which no detail about the candidates was too picayune to get saturation coverage, would find little that was familiar in the campaigning now under way in Iraq. Three weeks from the scheduled election, most Iraqis don’t even know the names of the candidates–who are so afraid of being murdered that they refuse to be identified.

That’s the face of democracy in Iraq, as insurgent violence mounts in the days before the Jan. 30 election. Four provinces have been declared not yet safe enough for voting, but Administration officials have not wavered in their insistence that the vote will be held on schedule. “I don’t think it’s a debate anymore,” says a U.S. official in Iraq. “The tactical and strategic setback would be far more damaging than the problems we would face after the election.”

Iraqis are being asked to choose from largely anonymous slates sponsored by different factions. These slates politick via posters adorning the innumerable concrete barriers that define Baghdad’s traffic arteries. Voters are urged, for instance, to pick List No. 169, the one approved by the umbrageous Grand Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani. Candidates do little flesh pressing and baby kissing, but there are ads on TV and radio, and each party has its own newspaper.

Voters too are frightened. Iraqi elder statesman Adnan Pachachi says many residents of big cities like Mosul, Ramadi and Samarra want to participate but are too scared to even register. He suspects that few in the Sunni minority will go to the polls–perhaps not even 10%–which could undermine the election’s legitimacy. “Many people from Arab countries will say this is not a correct election,” says Dr. Sa’ad Abdul al-Razzak of Pachachi’s party. U.S. officials say they will urge Shi’ite leaders to reach out to Sunnis after the election to bring them into the government and make sure they are sufficiently represented. “We believe the process will have Sunni input,” says the U.S. official. “We believe all Iraqis understand representation is crucial.” –By Christopher Allbritton and John F. Dickerson