BAGHDAD — The symbolism couldn't have been less subtle.
Amid tight security in a compound still bearing the effects of a recent car bomb attack, the top candidates of the powerhouse United Iraqi Alliance slate gathered Saturday to address the media. Interim Vice President Ibrahim Jafari was there. So was former Pentagon protege Ahmad Chalabi.
Looming over them, appropriately larger than life, was the white-whiskered, heavy-browed image of arguably the most recognizable face in today's Iraq.
As the election campaign heats up, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, even though he isn't running for office, has become a growing source of controversy and acrimony. Protests have grown from competing parties, including that of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, over the Alliance's use of Sistani's image.
Sistani, whose word is law to much of Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority, holds unmatched influence in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. More than any other person, the reclusive, Iranian-born cleric set the timetable for elections and quashed mounting calls for a delay. The Alliance, a coalition of diverse, mostly Shiite political groups, was assembled under his supervision.
From day one, the Alliance slate has been referred to widely as the Sistani list. It's a perception that the Alliance candidates don't mind. Campaign posters bearing Sistani's face blanket walls in much of the country alongside bills with the official Alliance symbol: a lighted candle.
Critics say the practice violates electoral rules against the use of religious symbols. Allawi's Iraqi National Accord has filed a protest with the electoral commission.
Another party leader, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he had also lodged a complaint. "Is Sistani not a religious symbol?" he asked rhetorically. "Are you allowed to put a picture of the pope on a poster and say, 'The pope wants you to vote for us'?"
Alliance candidate Mowaffak Rubaie, the country's interim national security advisor, dismissed the objections as "election rubbish."
Sistani has not explicitly endorsed the Alliance list. But he also hasn't spoken out to stop the use of his image on the multitude of Alliance posters. If the Alliance candidates have, as critics charge, hijacked his image for their political purposes, Sistani has at least allowed it to happen.
"There's no shred of doubt in my mind that Sistani doesn't object," said Rubaie, whom Allawi stripped of many responsibilities in the fall. He retains his title.
