Word: anbar
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...biggest threats. But so far there has been little sign that Iraq's militants are organizing a bloody show of force. The largest Shi'ite militia, the Mahdi Army of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, is essentially dormant these days. And Sunni insurgent elements in previously volatile areas such as Anbar and Diyala provinces appear to be, by and large, staying their hand in the expectation that sympathetic Sunni politicians - who boycotted the last provincial election, in 2005 - will take a number of seats from Kurdish and Shi'ite rivals and potentially reshape the political map in their favor. (Read...
...Marzouk says there are social constraints on her campaign. In Anbar, girls are rarely allowed to leave their town to pursue higher education, and active public campaigning is discouraged. Unlike their male counterparts, none of the female candidates are pictured on campaign posters (it was deemed inappropriate). "Because we are a tribal society, we didn't do posters with pictures," says Na'if. "We only put out cards with their names." Marzouk says: "There is more pressure on the women in the countryside than women in the city. For a woman to campaign, it's harder...
...contrast with female candidates in Baghdad is noticeable. In the Iraqi capital, posters can be seen pasted to blast walls depicting the faces of a few bold female candidates - something the Anbar women wouldn't dare to do. Iman al-Barazenchi, a European history professor at Baghdad University, has a loyal following of male and female students who are campaigning for her on campus. A candidate for the Iraqia bloc, Nebras al-Ma'mouri, makes frequent appearances as a political analyst on Iraqi television. "It's great to see a woman in politics," she says. "In America, for example...
...Anbar, that idea may take a little longer to get used to. "Of course, since it is a village area, people are shocked that I'm running. But I would like to prove to them that I can do something for this area - at least, for the women. Maybe we can build a fabric factory," says al-Feraji. In the living room of her home in al-Jazeera - a village of fields and date palms outside the provincial capital of Ramadi - al-Feraji contemplated the meaning of this election for Anbar's women. "We want to see women more active...
...Emad al-Azzawi, a mobile-phone vendor in Hurriya district who says he too would vote for al-Maliki's Dawa Islamic Party, despite its predominant Shi'ite background. Indeed, al-Maliki has also found friends in a host of new tribe-based parties that have grown out of Anbar's largely Sunni Awakening movement. (See pictures of a summit of Anbar's sheiks...