BAGHDAD, January 24 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – With less than a week to go, continued bloodshed across war-ravaged Iraq and the secrecy shrouding the controversial elections, slated for January 30, are adding confusion among a population that has almost no experience of choice in politics.

“We don't know these candidates, not their names, not their programs, not where they've come from. I will not vote for people I don't know,” said Hussein Ali, a handyman in Baghdad, told Reuters Monday, January 24.

“Until now, we don't know how to vote. I know there is an election center nearby, but I'm not sure exactly where it is.”

Iman Jawdat, 41, a teacher from Basra in the south, echoed a similar position.

“I know nothing about the people we are meant to elect. They don't tell us who they are or what their programs are,” he told Reuters.

“Since I don't know how to vote or what will be on the ballot sheet, why should I risk the bombings?”

A Dec. 26-Jan. 7 survey by the US-funded International Republican Institute found that while 64.5 percent of Iraqis were very likely to vote, 38.4 percent thought they were electing a president.

Iraqi voters are to choose a 275-member assembly, which will be charged with writing a permanent constitution.

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.

Reuters quoted veteran Iraqi politician Naseer Chaderji as labeling the January vote the first “secret elections” in history.

It said that security threats have forced most of the 7,500 candidates to shy away from rallies.

Of the 15 lists in the eastern province of Diyala's local election, only three blocs were campaigning openly and had released candidates' names.

“The other 12, we don't know who they are,” Governor Abdallah Al-Jibouri, who is running in local polls and has himself survived 14 assassination attempts since mid-2003, told Reuters.

Seven candidates have been killed in the past two months.

Four candidates were invited to join a televised election debate on Diyala TV this month.

Two people showed up – the governor and a Communist Party official who was not running.

According to Reuters, even Iraqis willing to brave bombs and bullets to vote may have little clue who they are electing until after the event.

Voters will not be choosing individual politicians, but a list of candidates representing a party or coalition.

The vote is based on a single constituency, proportional closed-list system, meaning that if a party gets 10 per cent of the votes, it gets 10 per cent of the seats, according to a fact list on Iraqi polls published by British daily The Independent Monday.

The parties choose the order of candidates on their lists, which is then final. If a party wins 10 seats, their top 10 people are elected.

Racing to raise awareness, Iraq's Electoral Commission has taken out full-page ads in newspapers.

Illustrated with cartoons, they show each step of the process from registration to voting to having their hands marked with indelible ink to prevent anyone voting twice.

“Iraqis haven't had real elections for over 30 years. Do you imagine we can raise full awareness in just six months?” Commission official Farid Ayar, told Reuters.

Under ousted Saddam Hussein, Iraqis had two options -- yes or no.

However, the national ballot will offer a mind-boggling 111 lists, each comprising anywhere between 12 and 275 candidates.

Iraqi police secure the area after the blast that targeted Allawi's Party offices. (Reuters)

As a result of attacks and threats targeting election centers and officials, the entire election staff in Iraq's third city of Mosul resigned, according to Reuters.

Election officials in other cities have stepped down too.

Seven have been killed, some dragged from their car in Baghdad in broad daylight and shot.

In the latest anti-election attacks, a car bomber struck Monday, January 24, near a checkpoint on a street leading to Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's party Baghdad headquarters.

A militant group led by Washington's top foe in Iraq, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for the attack in an Internet statement.

Officials in Allawi's office said the prime minister was not in the area at the time of the attack.

The blast echoed across central Baghdad, and a plume of smoke rose from the scene of the bombing.

US and Iraqi troops sealed off the area and helicopters buzzed overhead.