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Sunni Candidates in Iraq Find Enemies on All Sides

Sunni Arab parties are expected to make a strong showing in the elections for two reasons: Sunni clerics have issued a widespread call for their congregations to vote, and the electoral system divides most of the 275 parliamentary seats by province, guaranteeing that Sunni-dominated regions will get representation.

Even if it is unclear exactly how many seats the Sunni Arab parties will win, they will wield significant leverage in the formation of the new government, and no doubt use this to try and force the Shiites and Kurds to compromise on major issues like regional autonomy, the legal role of Islam and the sharing of oil wealth.

But in the final days of campaigning, the path to power is beset with dangers. Sheik Omar al-Jubouri, the head of the human rights office of the Iraqi Islamic Party, said at least 10 party members had been killed since the party announced in October the formation of a religious Sunni Arab coalition called the Iraqi Consensus Front to run in the election.

In early November, gunmen seriously wounded a well-known Sunni Arab candidate, Fakhri al-Qaisi, as he was driving in western Baghdad.

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More than any other Sunni group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, which says it has 435 offices across Iraq, has tried to straddle the line between engaging in the political process and siding with what it considers the legitimate resistance, meaning nationalist guerrillas. It was founded in the 1960's as an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood. The group has regular contact with American officials here - the Americans even gave it one of 25 seats on the Iraqi Governing Council in 2003. But the party boycotted last January's elections, decrying the American-led siege of Falluja.

In the late summer, it joined other Sunni Arab politicians in rejecting the proposed constitution when Shiite and Kurdish leaders ignored their demands. Then just days before the constitutional referendum in October, the party broke ranks with the Sunni establishment by asking voters to approve the document, after having negotiated a clause that would allow revisions by the new Parliament.

"That was one of the hardest decisions," Mr. Hashimi said.

That is when threats against the party increased. Offices were firebombed in Falluja and Ramadi. Gunmen ambushed clerics with ties to the party.

In recent weeks, the party has made an effort to strengthen its street credibility among the Sunnis. It made a flurry of announcements saying vote fraud had probably taken place during the referendum. It has also come out more vocally than ever against mass arrests by the Iraqi government and American forces.

Hatem Mukhlis, a Sunni Arab who heads a rival secular party in the election, the Assembly of Patriots, said the Iraqi Islamic Party had made the wrong decision by supporting the constitution, and was now desperately trying to salvage its reputation.

"They were generally considered to be traitors," said Mr. Mukhlis, a doctor who lived in the United States for 20 years. "They were really holding the stick in the middle, trying to do both things at once."

But the Iraqi Islamic Party has formidable allies in the two other prominent Sunni groups that are part of the Iraqi Consensus Front, the religious coalition expected to be the Sunni Arab front-runner in the elections. The alliance, which takes as its symbol the Islamic crescent and a palm frond, even has celebrity endorsements - Iraq's most famous soccer player, Ahmad Radhi, said at a news conference last week that he supported the coalition.

At a recent indoor rally in western Baghdad, one of the coalition's leaders, Adnan Dulaimi, who wields enormous influence in Sunni mosques, called on hundreds of clerics to tell their congregations to back the coalition. He promised it would help bring back the old Iraqi Army, take a stand against the detainee system and try to end the Shiite-led purges of former Baath Party members from the government.

"I've already called on people in Friday Prayer to support this list," said a slim, white-turbaned imam from Diyala Province, Sheik Ayad Ahmed Dulaimi, as he stood outside the hall. "We've suffered oppression. In order not to be marginalized, we need power in the National Assembly."

This access to mosques gives the coalition a huge advantage over more secular candidates like Mr. Mukhlis. The Iraqi Islamic Party has also begun advertising on television and putting up posters. The party has a campaign budget of $700,000, much of it raised through minimum donations of $200 from each member, said Mr. Makki, the campaign manager.

But to win Sunni Arab votes, these parties have to campaign in the most perilous parts of Iraq, where Mr. Zarqawi and other jihadists also hold sway.

"It's all dangerous, the work we're doing," Haider Khalil Hamid, 24, said as he worked with a dozen men to plaster posters for the Iraqi Islamic Party on a Baghdad boulevard. "The most important thing is to change the current government. The Sunnis don't feel comfortable with this sectarianism. Under Saddam's regime, it was good. Even in the time of Ayad Allawi, it was better than now."

Mr. Allawi, the former prime minister and a secular Shiite, will be a strong contender for the Sunni Arab vote because of his image as a tough leader and his former role in the Baath Party. Another ex-Baathist, Saleh Mutlak, has also emerged as a popular candidate among Sunnis. But whoever is their favorite politician, many Sunni Arabs say they must turn out to vote this time around.

"We will not let anyone marginalize us, and we will take our political right in administering Iraq," said Ibrahim Musleh al-Muhammadi, 40, a businessman in Falluja. "We say 'no' to the occupier and 'yes' to the freedom of Iraq."

The political situation is so complex right now, I think that's a very good sign. No one gets upset about voting and candidates unless they think the process MEANS something, and if it means something, and is worth taking risks for, then I think the Iraqis truly do understand what's at stake, and that bodes well for the future of Iraq. It won't be pretty, but democracy never is.

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