A Hard-Fought Political Campaign -- As Seen on TV

"Don't throw away your right," he responds.

One of the newest ads plays specifically to the Sunni Arab minority, a group U.S. officials acknowledge is unlikely to turn out in great numbers, either because of intimidation or rejection of a process seen as engineered by the United States. Even some Shiite officials acknowledge that the lack of Sunni participation poses the greatest threat to the election's success. Without it, the results will be vulnerable to charges of being unrepresentative and illegitimate, possibly intensifying Iraq's sectarian divide.

In the Sunni ad, two men play backgammon near young children, Omar and Khalid, traditionally Sunni names. One of the men is trying to persuade the other to vote:

"We should not let the insurgents or the terrorists stop us, because our votes are important to build a new Iraq," he pleads. "Change your mind and join the election." It ends with the slogan, "Your love of Iraq is your vote."

The National Democratic Institute, a democracy-building group based in Washington that says it draws on the traditions of the U.S. Democratic Party, has offered political parties access to a three-person media center. It has helped produce spots for 12 parties and provided expertise to eight others. Given the novelty of election ads in Iraq, the training is, at times, basic: the importance of body language, what to do with your hands, how to emphasize no more than three points.

"Some politicians are brand-new to this," said an institute official who asked not to be named because of security concerns. "It's scary to walk into bright lights and cameras."

The goal: "How not to look like you've been taken hostage," the official said.

Allawi's campaign has deployed the most intensive ads, many of them on a par with any seen in the United States. They have pushed his reputation as a secular technocrat determined to impose law and order, qualities that have helped him pose the greatest challenge among Arab voters to the list of the United Iraqi Alliance, a largely Shiite Arab coalition that has the endorsement of Iraq's Shiite religious leadership.

Often, the ads portray Allawi at a desk, with a voice-over .

"The election of next Sunday will be an important step," Allawi says in one. "We want a modern Iraq, that is developed and provides jobs. I believe in national unity, the solidarity of Iraq -- of Shiites, Sunnis, Arabs and Kurds -- without foreign intervention."

He adds later, "The voting will be secret, and the decision will be yours."

The mention of foreign intervention plays to fears among Sunnis and secular Shiites that the United Iraqi Alliance has the backing of the clerical government in neighboring Iran. The alliance has played down that perception, stressing in most of its ads that it envisions an Iraq that is "united, secure and independent."

In one of its ads, more roughly produced than Allawi's, a veiled woman walks to the ballot box, next to a candle, the symbol for the list. "To work together for preserving our country," the slogan runs.

Another, designed to appeal to religious Shiites, is a narrative of suffering and repression under Saddam Hussein -- skulls, mass graves and corpses.

The alliance acknowledges that television advertising has proven less important than its network of mosques, community centers and foundations run by the Shiite clergy. It mobilized both to encourage people to vote and foster support for the list.

"We are knocking on doors," said Saad Jawad Qindeel, acting head of the political bureau for the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the main parties in the coalition, whose leader sits atop the alliance's list of 228 candidates. "We use meetings, Friday prayers, leaflets, banners, mosques and books."

Some ads are more simple and conventional. One for the Communist Party-backed People's Union states their slogan: "For a free country and a happy people." The list of the two main parties of Kurds, the majority in northern Iraq, plays down its ethnicity, calling itself a list of all Iraqis -- Arab and Kurd, Christian and Muslim.

Correspondent Karl Vick and special correspondents Sahar Nageeb, Khalid Saffar and Omar Fekeiki contributed to this report.