BAGHDAD, January 7 (IslamOnline.net) – More than 7,000 Iraqi candidates are running in the country’s controversial general elections, slated for January 30. Empty rhetoric and sloganeering are the pivots of campaigning, ignoring the people’s social woes like the towering unemployment, insecurity and US-led occupation, according to Iraqi political activists and experts.

With the Iraqi electorate in the dark and virtually knows nothing about the platforms of their candidates, the Iraqi parties that decided to participate in the elections, are doing little to translate their words into action, rather focusing on slogans of national unity and the grave consequences of ethnic strife.

“Most parties are betting on Iraq’s ethnic mosaic and making use of big names on their slates to capture as much as they can from the votes,” Khalil Mattar, an independent political activist and a lawyer, told IslamOnline.net.

“They, in consequence, don’t care much about keeping the lay people posted on their agendas which should be the main yardstick in choosing between a candidate and another.”

The Iraqi voters are to choose a 275-member assembly, which will be charged with writing the first permanent constitution in post-Saddam era.

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

Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi insisted Wednesday, January 5, that the elections would be held on time.

His asserting came after his Defense Minister Hazem Al-Shaalan said Monday, January 3, that the controversial elections could be delayed to a later date if Iraqi Sunnis agreed to take part.

Abdul Amir Al-Faisal, a political analyst and professor of e-journalism in Baghdad University, agreed that candidates’ platforms brushed off the core problems of the Iraqis.

“Many of the vying parties want to make political and personal gains out of the upcoming election. It seems as if the election campaigns have been reduced to mere slogans.

“This is basically due to attempts of the Iraqi parties and election runners to make political gains, without probing the issue of foreign forces evacuation from Iraq.”

Interim Iraqi President Ghazi Al-Yawer's Iraqyon (Arabic for Iraqis) slate pledges to draw up a national liberal program and combat an economy in tatters.

While Allawi’s Iraqiya promises to combat corruption and revive the country’s sluggish economy.

The two main Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, were quick to unveil their enthusiastic agenda which suggests establishing two self-rule Arab and Kurdish districts in Iraq, and championed the idea of federalism as the best way to guarantee the rights of the minorities.

The Shiite Unified Iraqi Alliance list, backed by top authority Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistanti, also gave their electorate the same pep talk.

It stressed the importance of establishing a strong military and security institution to protect the interests of the Iraqi people.

Neither party explained how it would translate its election promises into action.

Faisal, however, said that a handful of Iraqi parties and candidates do have “real” agendas addressing problems like unemployment.

“But they can’t escape from the reality of prevailing insecurity and crippling US-led occupation,” he said.

Abdul Razik Al-Naas, professor of media in Baghdad University, said most of the platforms are nothing more than “pipe dreams.”

“They have nothing to do with reality and are just theoretical, especially when they come to deal with the main problems of the Iraqi people such as unemployment and security,” he told IOL.

As unemployment hit the scary mark of 65% according to unofficial statistics, job opportunities have become the overriding concern of the Iraqis, Naas added.

The anti-unemployment effort is undertaken by NGOs. Sources at the Employment Society told IOL that it has so far received 65,000 applications from Iraqis seeking jobs.

Naas further ruled out that the future Iraqi government would honor its pre-election promises.

Spokesman for the NGO National Association for the Sacked Officers, Aladdin Al-Tayyar, also questioned the possibility of finding a radical solution to unemployment under occupation.

“Iraq is plagued by a plethora of social ills like corruption, bribery and favoritism,” he said.

“It seems as if it became booty for the opponents of the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein.”

Hisham Al-Habobi, the politburo member of the National Democratic Alliance, said the dissolution of the Iraqi army has added insult to injury.

“It is not only limited to the deteriorating security and economic conditions, but also to the blunder of dissolving the Iraqi army and ministries,” he said.

One month after the occupation of Iraq in April 2003, former US Civil Administrator of the country, Paul Bremer, dissolved the Iraqi army and ministries, leaving thousands of Iraqis jobless.