HILLAH, Iraq — The only sound disturbing the rural stillness as Jawdat Obeidi laid out his election battle plan was the tinkling of spoons in dozens of tea cups.
"We have 50 days. We have to exploit every minute," Obeidi told the more than 60 men seated cross-legged on the floor of a house outside this southern Iraqi city. "We have to use all the influence we can -- tribal, religious, social and otherwise -- to get as many votes as we can."
The slightly rumpled former exile, who long ago served in Saddam Hussein's army, spent the recent afternoon flanked by an array of rural tribal elders, turbaned religious sheiks and doctors and engineers in suits. The purpose: final planning before campaigning for Iraq's parliamentary election officially begins today.
Iraq's electoral landscape is crowded with powerhouse coalitions boasting insider status and nationwide reach. Major blocs backed by Iraq's powerful Shiite Muslim religious leadership and by officials from the former Iraqi Governing Council are expected to win a large share of the national assembly's 275 seats.
But Obeidi, 47, has high hopes for his comparatively modest Iraqi Unified Democratic Congress coalition, which has joined a 150-candidate slate for the Jan. 30 legislative election. The assembly will be charged with forming a government and writing a national constitution.
"I think the parties that didn't participate in the GC have a better chance than the ones that did," said Obeidi, referring to the U.S.-appointed Governing Council. A former general who broke from the Iraqi army in 1991, Obeidi joined an uprising in his hometown of Hillah during the Persian Gulf War.
A Shiite, he is banking on his local credentials and on the damaged credibility of the Governing Council to open up the Iraqi political scene.
"Those parties didn't serve the needs of the Iraqi people and the people know that," he said.
Independent election observers and organizers agree that smaller grass-roots slates will probably do well. After decades of autocratic rule by Hussein's Sunni-dominated Baath Party and more than 18 months dominated by exile-led groups favored by the U.S., many Iraqis are deeply suspicious of all party politics, said an official with an international organization working on political party development in Iraq.
"Iraqis have an enormously refreshing amount of cynicism toward political leaders and political parties, and that is healthy," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
