“The elections will not be delayed,” Zebari said. (Reuters)

The elections were dealt a heavy blow with more staffers tendering resignation after receiving death threats.

Members of the Iraqi Independent Commission in the western Iraqi province of Al-Anbar tendered mass resignation Tuesday after receiving death threats from Iraqi resistance groups if they took part in the polls, AFP said.

“We submitted our resignation to the governor yesterday. We have been receiving threats by letters and phone,” said Abdel Aziz Al-Rawi, who headed the election team in the western region.

Top electoral officials, however, said there had been only individual resignations from the election members, adding that all those who had stepped down had been replaced by local officials from Baghdad.

The IECI is the highest executive and legislative power that manages the electoral process mechanism.

It consists of seven independent members selected by the UN out of 1000 candidates.

The IECI supervises voter registration, determines eligibility criteria and approves political entities and eligible candidates.

The Independent Election Commission in Iraq employs 1,000 core electoral officials and a further 6,000 provincial officials.

Tensions

With polling day looming large, sectarian tensions started to figure high on the campaign, as Allawi’s Iraqi National Accord party (INA) cried foul over the alleged use of religion by Shiite politicians.

The INA lodged a formal complaint against the joint Shiite list, the Unified Iraqi Alliance (UIA), for violating state law by allegedly using religion in its advertising. It also accused Shiite militias of intimidating voters ahead of the poll, reported AFP.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari stressed, however, that the January elections would be held as planned.

“The elections will not be delayed. They will go ahead with the participation of those who want to. Those who boycott the polls will lose their voice,” Zebari told Egyptian government newspaper Al-Ahram Wednesday, January 12.

The elections would be held in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces, he added.

“The elections will not be perfect, nor organized 100 percent. There will be problems but we will hold them because the majority of people want them.”

Several politicians and party officials in Iraq are pressing for a six-month delay of the vote over the increasing deteriorating security conditions.

US analysts and officials predicted Tuesday, January 11, the coming controversial Iraqi polls to lead to more chaos and instability.

UN Iraqi envoy Lakhdar Brahimi also warned that holding the elections would be impossible unless “first and foremost security improves” with many, including Britain’s The Independent, expecting the vote to be one of the most “secretive” polls in history.

Fallujah Evacuees

In a separately related development, the United Nations said the displaced Iraqis of the western Iraqi city of Fallujah will not return to the shattered city till after the January elections.

“Until the elections take place and until they see what happens, they won't go back because they're scared,” spokeswoman Marie-Helene Verney of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said, Reuters reported.

“It's still pretty recent,” he added.

Verney noted that many Fallujah refugees living outside the city will await the results of the election before considering to return to the city.

“Many IDPs (internally displaced people) said they intend to stay in their current locations until after the elections at the end of January,” the UNHCR said in a statement, citing a survey it conducted.

Many Fallujah residents who returned to the city in last December said the city was unfit even for animals.

Living conditions in the devastated city remain poor, with electricity sporadic, municipal water available only a few hours a day, and the city's general hospital located outside areas open to residents, meaning they have to pass through checkpoints to reach it, the UN added.

About 80-to-90 percent of Fallujah's 300,000-strong population have evacuated the city, escaping the hell of continuous US air raids.

Some 10,000 US marines and army forces, alongside some 2,000 Iraqi national guardsmen unleashed a long-expected onslaught on the resistance hub November 8, capping long nights of massive US raids.

The successive air strikes have caused huge damage in the western Baghdad city, with dead bodies littering the streets.