BAGHDAD, December 13, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Unlike in the January polls which they largely boycotted, the majority of Iraqi Sunni Arabs are charging their batteries in preparation for the watershed legislative elections, scheduled for Thursday, December 15.

"The sweeping majority of registered voters in Al-Azamiya will be casting their ballots," Dawood Al-Azami, a leading political activist in the Baghdad Sunni stronghold, told IslamOnline.net Tuesday, December 13.

"People have learned the lesson after they were largely marginalized because of boycotting the last elections," he noted.

A local municipality official told IOL there are an estimated 25,000 eligible voters in the district.

Iraq's 15.5 million voters are electing their first full-term legislature since the ouster of Saddam Hussein's regime by US-led occupation forces in April 2003.

The parliament will in turn form a full-term, four-year government.

Iraqi expatriates in 15 world countries began voting Tuesday a day after around 300,000 hospital patients, prison detainees and security forces cast their ballot at special polling stations across the country.

Five main coalitions based largely on sectarian or ethnic lines are dominating the election campaign across Iraq.

They are the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the Kurdish alliance of the Democratic Kurdistan Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Sunni Iraqi Concord Front (ICF) and former premier Iyad Allawi’s secular-Shiite Iraqi National List (INL).

However, in Al-Azamiya the favored candidates are those of Sunni politician Saleh Al-Mutlaq’s Iraqi Front for National Dialogue (IFND).

"I will vote for Al-Mutlaq's IFND because of its national and Islamic leaning," Ahmed Hamza, a shop owner, told IOL.

Other voters in the city also echoed support for Mutlaq's front.

"The IFND is the most popular among voters here," agreed the political activist.

According to IOL correspondent, Mutlaq gained popularity among voters in Al-Azamiya after his decision to withdraw from the Iraqi National Dialogue Council – an ICF member - and run on an independent list.

The pan-Sunni ICF groups the Conference of the People of Iraq (CPI), the Islamic Party and the INDC.

Mutlaq was one of the most vocal Sunni leaders who opposed the Iraqi draft constitution but then relented when Sunni drafters were promised that the new parliament would have the powers to amend the constitution and reconsider some sticking points like federalism and wealth share.

Iraqi children place election campaign posters on a wall for the Thursday's legislative elections in the Iraqi city of Ramadi (Reuters)

Abu Yasser, a shop owner, said that unlike the January elections, intensive campaigns are under way to mobilize Sunni voters to cast ballots.

"The residents are keen to vote in the polls to bring an end to the policies of mass detentions and crackdowns by the incumbent Iraqi government," he stressed.

Several local scholars have told residents that voting in the election was serving the best interests of Iraq.

The influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), which had urged Sunnis to boycott the "illegal" January polls, has so far been neutral.

However, some of its senior members have called participation in the polls a "religious duty".

A local official told IOL on condition of anonymity that resistance groups have not issued any threats against voting, which suggest they do not have a problem with that.

On Thursday, the Islamic Army in Iraq said that it would not attack polling stations in legislative elections.

"According to our long-standing instructions not to launch random attacks that kill innocents and criminals, we order our fighters not to target voting areas to avoid bloodshed," it said in an internet statement on Tuesday.

"This does not mean that we back this so-called political process," it added.

Fallujah

Two days before the polls, the resistance hub of Fallujah has also been blanketed in banners and posters of candidates competing in the legislative race.

Fallujans are resolved to vote, reported the London-based Al-Quds Press news agency.

"We will vote in numbers," Gamal Ahmed Al-Esawi said.

"We will defy any attempt to marginalize the Fallujan people. We want to have our own representatives in the new parliament," he added.

Sheikh Mohamed Rashid agreed.

"The Fallujans should go in droves to the polling stations to cast their ballots on the election day."

Mosque imams and tribal chieftains have been urging people in the city to vote.

Candidates of the Sunni ICF are the most appealing to Fallujans, though posters of all most all election coalitions could be spotted in the city.

Allawi's INL is the only exception.

"Fallujans can never forget that their homes were razed to the ground and city turned to a ghost town by US strikes under Allawi's premiership," said reporter Alaa Naji.

Fallujah was the scene of one of the bloodiest US raids in November 2004 with at least 700 people killed, including children and women, and thousands injured.

Amnesty International has harshly criticized the US for killing dozens of civilians in a number of deadly consecutive air strikes into the war-battered city.

Also read:

• Iraq Sees "New Style" Poll Campaigning

• Mosul Blanketed in Sunni Banners Ahead of Polls

• Killings, Kidnappings Reign Over Iraq Ahead of Polls