Baghdad: With the forthcoming provincial elections in January and a looming security pact between the US and Iraq, the future of Iraq is up in the air. Different areas of Iraq face different challenges. The following is a survey of different cities and provinces in iraq.
Diyala province
In Baquoba, the capital of Diyala province, buildings are pockmarked with bullet holes. The wreckage is an implicit reminder of the failures of the previous election in January 2005.
Most Sunnis stayed home from the polls then, angered over the US invasion and the policies that followed. But the boycott now is viewed as the Sunnis' biggest blunder.
In Baquoba, like Baghdad and Mosul, the electoral results, which gave a disproportionate majority to other religious and ethnic groups, helped fuel violence. Now, the province's Sunnis are mobilised to vote, but fearful and worried about the Shiite-led government. They regularly accuse Baghdad of trying to sabotage the Sunnis in the province.
Former Sunni insurgents, known as the Sons of Iraq, credited with fighting Al Qaida in Baquoba, are wanted for arrest. Inside the fortified governorate compound, Governor Ra'ad Jawad Tamimi makes clear he thinks the Shiites will win a majority in Diyala, despite Sunni claims they are a larger percentage of the population.
Baghdad
For the last four years, the Baghdad provincial council has been dominated by Shiite religious parties. Until 2008, the municipality regularly frustrated US officers who sought better services for Sunni areas. The lack of electricity and water stemmed in part from the dangers associated with Sunni enclaves and in part from sectarian bias.
Now new Sunni politicians, ascendant from the Sons of Iraq movement, hope to change the equation. They have partnered with established Sunni parliamentary blocs, like the Iraqi Accordance Front to gain seats.
Colonel Ra'ad Ali, a member of the Sons of Iraq in the western district of Ghazaliya, has joined a slate with secular Parliament member Salah Mutlaq.
"This election is too important. This time it is to be or not to be. We can't let these religious parties rule us. We have suffered enough," Colonel Ra'ad said. "We think if we get in power we can judge them for their crimes before and rebuild. This is a secular country. We have had enough from the religious parties."
Basra
Another potential hot spot will be in the south, where Dawa and SIIC will be pitted against each other. "We have the ability and ambition to win in the next elections," said Furat al Sharaa, the head of SIIC in Basra.
The Dawa party has been boosted by Al Maliki's performance since the spring when he ordered the Iraqi army to wrest control of Basra from militias and criminal gangs. His party is staunchly opposed to SIIC's vision of a giant southern federal region.
"We think the central government's jurisdiction should be wider and stronger than the provincial government. The unity of Iraq depends on the central government," said Ali Alaaq, a lawmaker from Maliki's Dawa party.
The election results could very well determine whether SIIC pursues its vision of a strong federal region, or gives up its quest, faced with Al Maliki's surging popularity.
Mosul
Nowhere are the stakes higher than Nineveh province in northern Iraq. Sunni Arabs hope to gain a majority on the provincial council after their decision in 2005 to boycott resulted in a Kurdish majority. If they win, the Sunnis hope to challenge the Kurds on issues such as Kurdistan's de facto control of areas north and east of Nineveh's capital Mosul, which Kurdish forces now control.
"We want to take away the Kurdish parties' power and rule in those districts and sub-districts," said Hassan Alaf of the Islamic party. "We want the Kurds to realise Mosul is a place for brotherhood, but we also want them to know Mosul is an Arab province." The Kurds recognise they no longer will have the largest coalition in the provincial council, but they warn they will not compromise on the regions that border Kurdistan, which they believe were taken from them under Saddam Hussain.
Harem Kamal Khurshed, the Mosul head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, speaks badly of one of the newly emergent Sunni parties, called Hadba, which is associated with Sunnis who worked in Saddam's Iraq. "We want to coexist with everyone," he said, "but there are elements in the new parties like Hadba that want to monopolise the whole provincial council and bring back the Ba'ath regime".
