Political Islam Put to the Test In Southern Iraq

Despite the disenchantment, the Supreme Council and allied parties still have a powerful card to play: the stature of Sistani, whose leadership is known as the marja. While the ayatollah has not formally endorsed the United Iraqi Alliance in the parliamentary vote or the Supreme Council's list in local elections, the party has emblazoned his portrait on campaign literature. "All of us are with the list of the marja," one poster reads. In sympathetic mosques, preachers have insisted that voting for the alliance is equivalent to a religious duty.

Opposition candidates suggest that while secular groups such as the Communist Party-backed People's Union and Allawi's coalition will fare well in Basra, religious parties will still find success in the countryside, which is far more conservative and religious.

In their view, rural Iraqis are more willing to follow the lead of the clergy and tribal leaders historically loyal to the Shiite leadership in Najaf.

"The Islamic parties have locked up the countryside," said Ahmed Khudheir, a spokesman for the Communist Party, whose decrepit office is lined with portraits of cadres killed under Hussein's rule and pictures of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. "It's religion, not politics there."

In the city, though, there is a process underway that might be called a demystification of authority, a narrowing of the distance between ruler and ruled that was so ingrained under Hussein. The elections' greatest success may prove to be the degree to which Basra's residents now hold the government accountable, whatever its leaning, voicing criticism never heard in 25 years.

Often the talk comes furiously.

"None of the parties had done anything," said Saad Fatlawi, standing in an appliance store along Algeria Street. "They steal, they loot, they use force, and those who don't serve them, they'll break their back."

His colleague, Khaled Hassan, interrupted, saying Sistani had "blessed" the Supreme Council's list.

"There's no life in Iraq," Fatlawi answered. "This is the way we're going to live? This is not a life."

The secular parties are counting on that sentiment, in the city at least, to improve their fortunes.

"It's not because we have a strong project or activity in the field. We're weak, confused and disorganized," said Sari, the opposition party leader, "but the people are going to vote for us, solely so that they're not under the hammer of the religious parties. This is the reality."