Word: shying
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...leading up to the vote. In a minor but positive sign, officials even decided to leave polls open for an additional hour after some Iraqis complained of names missing from polling lists. Preliminary results, to be released on Feb. 5, are expected to garner some controversy, however. In one Shi'ite province, a candidate who is unofficially leading the polls has been accused of serving as a top official in Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime. In other regions, allegations of voter fraud have been made...
...regime," Allawi told TIME at the Baghdad headquarters of his political party, the Iraqi National Accord. "I respect religion. But religion needs to be de-politicized." Despite the gains made by Allawi's secular list in last weekend's provincial elections, the big winner at the polls was the Shi'ite-led alliance of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki - who remains the man to beat in the national election slated for next year...
Nevertheless, some in Baghdad are calling for the group to be allowed to remain in Iraq, or at least to not be turned over to Iran, for political reasons. "We have to deal with this issue very delicately," says Ayad Jamal al-Deen, an Iraqi parliamentarian aligned with Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. "I'm not here to defend this organization. I have no interest in them. But I am looking out for the Iraqi national interest." Al-Deen and other Iraqi political figures see the group essentially as a bargaining chip with Iran, one of the few Iraq...
...that insurgents and militia elements may stage attacks on election day. With the vehicle ban, suicide bombers on foot and rocket or mortar fire pose the 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...
...militant rejectionists remain at large in Iraq. On Tuesday, attackers torched a polling station near the city of Fallujah in Anbar province. And sporadic bombings persist in Baghdad, Mosul and Diyala province. But the fear of carnage that has surrounded past elections and mass public gatherings like the regular Shi'ite pilgrimages is low.(See TIME's photo-essay "Showdown in Fallujah...