BAGHDAD — Less than two weeks before the Jan. 30 vote, Iraqis' frustration is rising as they prepare for the most important election of their lives amid a climate of fear, insecurity and scant information.
There have been no public debates or voter fact booklets to help citizens wade through the 111 slates offering candidates for a transitional national assembly, which will write the country's constitution. Iraqis still don't know where they will vote, what the ballots will look like or, because of assassination fears, the names of 7,400 candidates.
"How can we vote for people when we don't even know their names yet?" asked Heider Khalid, 21, a mathematics student at Baghdad University. "This is such a critical vote. We don't know nearly enough."
On Baghdad's busiest shopping street, laborer Abdallah Jasim scanned the hundreds of campaign posters vying for his attention. Slapped on fences, light poles and anything else that will stand still long enough, colorful banners spout slogans of unity and one-word platforms such as "Security," "Peace" or, in a sign of ongoing infrastructure problems, "Electricity."
It's a jumble of unfamiliar coalition names, symbols and three-digit numbers urging voters to remember a particular slate when they open their ballots on election day. Iraqis will select a single slate of ranked candidates, who will be allotted assembly seats based on how many votes the slate gets.
For Jasim, who hasn't decided which slate to support, the blizzard of posters and platitudes is of little help.
"We don't know who these people are," he said. "The posters offer nothing. We don't know what numbers represent which parties. There's a long list of promises, but who knows if they will keep them or not?"
In the absence of facts or aggressive campaigning, electoral experts predict that Iraqis will have little choice but to revert to religious affiliation or ethnicity when making a decision. Shiite Muslims will vote for Shiites, Kurds for Kurds. Members of Islam's Sunni branch, if they vote at all, will seek out a Sunni slate.
U.S. and Iraqi officials had long hoped to shift Iraq away from such sectarianism, fearing that long-simmering animosities would ignite a civil war. But so far, most slates have been unable or unwilling to communicate their positions beyond the religious or ethnic makeup of their candidates.
