How Iraq's election will work

As of this writing, full details of the election had not been released. Most Iraqis are just now being told where they will vote. Most of the secrecy is an attempt to guard against insurgent attacks.

Iraq's insurgency is diverse and decentralized. US and Iraqi intelligence officials say fighters include foreign jihadis drawn by the chance to strike at America and the hope that they can establish a religious state in Iraq; local Iraqis who share the foreign fighters' ideology; members of the old military and the Baath Party who hope to win their way back to power; and nationalist Iraqis who simply want to strike out at the occupation, or avenge family members killed or arrested during the war. What they have in common is that almost all of them are Sunni Arabs, and feel threatened by the looming ascendancy of Iraq's majority Shiites. Virtually all of them feel the election will further cement this trend.

Security is very high for the election. There are major restrictions on movements around election day. Starting Friday, travel between Iraq's provinces will be allowed only by special permits, and most civilian travel will be barred on Jan. 30 to prevent car bombs. Layers of security will surround polling places, manned by about 100,000 Iraqi police and 60,000 Iraqi National Guardsmen. Behind them will be the 150,000 US troops and 10,000 British soldiers. How successful this approach will be remains an open question. Insurgent leaders have vowed attacks on voters both during and after the election.

The principal difference between Islam's two major sects stems from a dispute over the correct succession to the prophet Muhammad nearly 1,400 years ago. Over time, differences have evolved into cultural issues, rather than disagreements about basic tenets of the faith.

Almost all modern Shiites follow closely the advice of a chosen religious scholar. Sunni religious authority tends to be more fragmented, with a greater emphasis placed on individual understanding of the Koran. Some Sunnis see the Shiite practice of celebrating Imams' birthdays and praying at their shrines as inappropriate.

Put simply, Shiite Arabs are the big winners in the new Iraq and Sunni Arabs the big losers. For most of the history of Iraq, from the Ottoman Empire until the fall of Saddam Hussein, Sunni Arabs have made up the country's administrative and governing elite. The Arab Shiites have been second-class citizens, and periodically rose up against the Hussein government only to be crushed by regime forces. Sunnis feel they're losing place and power through the election, while Shiites see it as a chance finally to take their position as Iraq's most powerful faction.

Three lists - the United Iraqi Alliance, the Iraqi list, and the Kurdish Alliance - are expected to draw 50 percent or more of the vote. (See story.) Because of Iraq's demographics, the election system may well yield a national assembly that exaggerates the power of the country's majority Shiites, and, to a lesser extent, the Kurds in the north.

The five most violent Iraqi provinces are home to most of Iraq's Sunni Arabs, who make up about 20 percent of the country. While polling shows that nearly 80 percent of the Shiites, who make up about 60 percent of the population, and around 70 percent of the Kurds, who make up about 15 percent of the country, say they are "very likely" to vote; only about 20 percent of Sunni Arabs say the same.

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