A woman and a child sit next to a pro-election banner in Basra

Additional Reporting By Mazen Ghazi, IOL Correspondent

BAGHDAD, December 20 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Watertight security in a country already marred by chaos and lawlessness, a people panicked by day-to-day indiscriminate attacks against a backdrop of not at all empty threats for willing voters will likely make the Iraqi elections on January 30 one of the most “secretive” polls in history.

“Iraqi television shows only the feet of election officials rather than their faces, because they are terrified of their identity being revealed. It will be a poll governed by fear,” Britain’s The Independent newspaper on Sunday, December 19.

It ridiculed US and British claims that most of Iraq was stable as armchair officials in both countries used to follow up the situation in the war-torn country from their offices in Washington and London.

“President George Bush and Tony Blair genuinely appear to believe that there are only limited trouble spots in Iraq and the rest of the country is at peace,” it said.

“In reality the deadliest location for a US soldier in Iraq is Baghdad, where 240 US troops have been killed since March last year, more than twice as many as in Fallujah.”

Terrified of the unabated attacks, interim premier Iyad Allawi last week huddled himself in the US heavily protected Green Zone in Baghdad to announce his slate of candidates for the 275-member National Assembly.

The Iraqi voters will choose a 275-member assembly on January 30, which will write a permanent constitution.

If adopted in a referendum next year, the constitution would form the legal basis for another general elections to be held by December, 2005.

Watertight Measures

An Iraqi reads a newspaper while posters advertising for the elections are seen in the background (AFP)

The country’s cellular network will be neutralized as of January 14 till the end of the general elections, a well-placed source with the interim Iraqi government was quoted as saying the Al-Mo’tamar newspaper.

He added that universities, schools and state-run institutions will be given four days off and all roads leading to polling stations closed, said the paper, the mouthpiece of Ahmad Chalabi's National Accord party.

Nevertheless, a heavy turnout seems just wishful thinking with the majority of the country’s 25 million population expected to barricade themselves into their houses in fear of their lives.

No enthusiastic volunteers could be spotted on the streets distributing platforms and election leaflets -- except for some Shiite cities and districts – as they are seen by some armed groups as “collaborators” with the US-led occupation.

Shopkeepers distributed registration forms hidden in the bags of monthly rations on which most Iraqis survive.

Polling stations have become a virtual no-go zone in view of mortar attacks and shooting sprees day in and day out.

An Iraqi policemen told IslamOnline.net Sunday, December 19, on condition of anonymity, that it was impossible to provide security to the 9,000 ballots stretching across the country.

On the same day, three elections staffers were gunned down by unidentified attackers in the Haifa street in central Baghdad.

The trio were dragged out from their vehicles by six gunmen armed with Ak-47 assault rifles and pistols and then shot dead.

Also Sunday, two car bombs killed at least 62 people in the two southern Shiite holy cities of An-Najaf and Karbala.

Representatives of several Iraqi parties and leading political figures have been campaigning for a six-month delay of the vote over the increasing deteriorating security conditions.

UN Iraqi envoy Lakhdar Brahimi warned that holding the elections would be impossible unless “first and foremost security improves.”

The UN pulled its non-Iraqi staff out of the war-torn country in October 2003 because of the deteriorating security situation, following a deadly August 19 attack on the UN's Baghdad headquarters which killed top envoy Sergio Vieira De Mello and 21 others.