Election Is Looking Up for Allawi

A pair of expectant eyes peer over Iraq.

On bus stops and lampposts, television screens and billboards, the ubiquitous close-up image of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s gaze has become the central icon of his election campaign. Some voters say it symbolizes his vision for Iraq. Others infer a Big Brother message: Allawi sees all.

Whatever the perception, in the final week of campaigning there is little dispute that momentum is quietly building for Allawi, a onetime CIA-backed Iraqi opposition leader who many predicted would never shake his image as a U.S. puppet.

Recent polls show support is growing for a slate of candidates led by the former neurologist. Nearly a third of Iraqis now believe that Allawi, who was appointed by the United States as prime minister in June, has been “very effective.” That’s twice the number who thought so last fall, according to a survey conducted in January by the International Republican Institute, a Washington-based group with links to the GOP.

Random interviews with Iraqis across the country suggest that the prime minister is picking up support in some unlikely places, hinting that he may have the ability to bridge Iraq’s ethnic and religious divides.

Allawi has taken advantage of his incumbency and name recognition, his image as a strongman and his Shiite ethnicity, presenting his slate as a secular alternative to the religious Shiite parties.

“He’s going to do surprisingly well,” predicted Abdul Zahra Zaki, editor of the left-leaning Al Mada newspaper, who said he planned to vote for the prime minister. “People want to give him a chance to continue what he started.”

In Kirkuk, where ethnic identities are among the strongest in Iraq, the regional police chief, Maj. Gen. Torhan Abdul Rihman Yousef, is a Turkmen. His boss is a Kurd. On the wall behind the police chief’s desk is a giant photo of Yousef with interim Iraqi President Ghazi Ajil Yawer, a Sunni Arab who is also heading a slate in Sunday’s election.

But Yousef said he would vote for Allawi.

“He is a strong leader, and Iraq needs a strong leader,” Yousef said.

Even among Shiites -- who are facing pressure from their mosques to rally behind a slate put together by powerful cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani -- Allawi, a secular Shiite, is emerging as an alternative for those who fear that rigorous Islamic views will creep into government.

“I’m not against Islam, because I myself am Muslim, but I have some fears about the Islamic movement,” said Aida Mousawi, 45, who works at the Women’s Development Center in Najaf and is planning to vote for Allawi. “It could affect our day-to-day lives.”

The United Iraqi Alliance, the Sistani-blessed slate, is watching Allawi’s progress warily. “Allawi will be our No. 1 competitor,” said Sheik Humam Hamoodi, a leading candidate on the Shiite-dominated slate.

On election day, Iraqis will wade through 111 slates offering candidates for a transitional national assembly. Voters will select a select a single slate of ranked candidates, who will be allotted assembly seats based on how many votes the slate gets. The assembly will select a new government and write the country’s constitution.

Hamoodi still believes his slate will garner the lion’s share of the vote, perhaps between 40% and 50% of the seats. He thinks Allawi’s list, which includes several government ministers, will earn about half that.

Imad Shabib, campaign coordinator for Allawi’s slate, said that anything less than 20% for his list would be a failure. He’s betting the slate will capture closer to 30%.

As head of the 233-candidate Iraqi List, Allawi is virtually guaranteed a seat in the parliament, which will elect a three-person presidency council. The council in turn will appoint the new prime minister. If Allawi’s slate does well, he’ll have more bargaining power to keep his job.

Hamoodi criticized Allawi’s campaign for focusing too heavily on the prime minister’s personality and name recognition, though he acknowledged that the strategy might appeal to voters.

“He’s a one-man show,” Hamoodi said. “Iraqis are used to this idea of the superhuman leader. That’s what they’ve seen for the past 30 years. Allawi’s campaign is all about portraying himself as the superhuman leader.”

If Allawi’s slate does well on election day, it will mark a surprising turnaround for the former Baath Party official who broke with then-President Saddam Hussein and settled in London, from where he led a U.S.-funded opposition.

Last year, Allawi emerged as the last man standing when the U.S. and United Nations cobbled together an interim government, naming him prime minister. Then, as now, he represented a compromise that most sides could live with. He’s a Shiite with secular leanings and a U.S. ally who also criticized the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority.

Six months later, Allawi is running amid an array of problems that would usually spell defeat for an incumbent. Electricity outages are the worst since the war. Gas lines snake for miles. Security remains a problem, and many believe violence is up. Even parts of the capital don’t have running water.

Allawi also approved controversial decisions allowing U.S. and Iraqi troops’ operations in Najaf, Samarra and Fallouja that destroyed large parts of the cities in an effort to root out insurgents.

Some voters won’t forgive Allawi’s role in the attacks. “I wouldn’t even think about voting for someone who killed my cousins and brothers in Fallouja, Mosul and many other parts of Iraq,” said Mohammed Aadhami, 36, a Baghdad engineer and Sunni Muslim.

But election experts say the crackdowns helped boost Allawi’s popularity by portraying him as a strong leader willing to make tough decisions. Polls taken after Fallouja showed a dramatic rise in his ratings.

“He may not have been popular with Fallouja at the time, but he took a strong action. He took leadership. That’s what people want to see,” said one Western election expert in Baghdad who asked not to be identified.

Iraqis are so eager for strong leadership that when rumors spread last year that Allawi had personally executed criminals in a jail, the prime minister’s reputation was enhanced in the minds of many citizens.

The U.S. has tried to stay on the sidelines of the campaign, although the White House has confirmed that several telephone calls had taken place between Allawi and President Bush in the last two weeks. Fears that anti-Americanism in Iraq might hurt candidates with links to Washington have been unfounded. In fact, Allawi’s relationship with the U.S. is seen by many Iraqis as an advantage.

U.S. Ambassador John D. Negroponte told reporters last week that Allawi had done an admirable job during a difficult period.

“He inherited a situation where he had an appointed government that he didn’t choose himself,” Negroponte said. “He’s managed to bring this Cabinet together as a reasonably cohesive team.”

Helping boost Allawi’s chances is a slick, Western-style political campaign, including heavy advertising, nationwide outreach to tribal leaders and a softer image for the prime minister, who has been perceived by some as aloof and dismissive.

Sitting under a 10-foot-long poster of Allawi’s eyes at the prime minister’s campaign headquarters in Baghdad, Shabib, who is also a candidate on the slate, said the campaign was trying to stress Allawi’s efforts to improve citizens’ lives.

Allawi’s slate has spent about $4 million so far on a campaign that relies on television commercials on Arabic-language channels.

The prime minister, whose movements are restricted by security concerns, is also dramatically increasing his public appearances, traveling around the country to campaign.

On Monday, Allawi held a news conference in Baghdad, promising that he had a plan to create 250,000 jobs. Unemployment, believed to be about 50%, has been one of voters’ top concerns, polls show. The day before, Allawi was in Basra inaugurating an Iraqi naval unit and paying courtesy calls on tribal leaders.

In the past, Allawi shunned the media, but he has started granting in-depth television interviews to the Al Arabiya satellite channel, based in the United Arab Emirates, talking, as he commonly does, in detail about his personal struggles.

Some tactics by Allawi’s slate would raise eyebrows in the U.S., such as the distribution this month of 5,000 food baskets -- with campaign literature attached -- to the poor in Baghdad’s Sadr City slum. The campaign also handed out to Iraqi reporters 1,000 tape recorders, which Shabib said were donated by a supporter. Some journalists also found $100 bills in their press kits.

A few weeks ago, Allawi’s slate set its sights on the front-runner, complaining that the United Iraqi Alliance should not be allowed to use pictures of the popular cleric Sistani on its posters.

“Honestly, we were not doing very well to start with because of the Shia list,” said Rajaa Rabib Khuzai, one of Iraq’s leading female politicians and a candidate on Allawi’s slate. “They used Sistani’s name, and this attracted the simple, uneducated people.”

Since then, the Allawi slate has been focusing its efforts in southern Iraq, spreading the message that Sistani has not endorsed any particular slate and that Shiites should be free to vote as they choose.

“We are trying to convince people not to go blindly,” Khuzai said. “Now we are winning.”