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From across the room, al-Feraji's 7-year-old daughter chimed in: "That's right...
...Mohammad al-Rubeiy, dressed in a smart black suit and black tie, holding an armful of campaign posters, is feeling optimistic. He is campaigning vigorously to win a seat on Baghdad's provincial council on Jan. 31, when millions of Iraqis are expected to cast their votes in 14 of Iraq's provinces. He has passed out personal campaign cards, posters and mini pocket calendars with his name printed on them. He even hopes to hold an outdoor political debate with his opponents - the first in Iraq that he knows of. Says al-Rubeiy: "I got the idea from Obama...
...Al-Rubeiy isn't a top contender. He is campaigning as a member of the secular Iraqi National Accord Party, headed by former Prime Minister Ayad al-Allawi. It is a party that falls below the popularity of ruling Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa Islamic Party. Rubeiy believes that his party ranks fourth or fifth in the eyes of his fellow Iraqis in the capital...
...shrunk to just over half its original size of 44 MPs. In the past three years, parliament has also seen the ruling Shi'ite bloc slowly split apart. The most significant blow came in 2007 with the angry departure of dozens of followers of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. And the bloc's remaining big powers - al-Maliki's Dawa Islamic Party and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq - will be running on separate lists come Jan. 31, thereby splitting the Shi'ite vote...
...last election, there were alliances. Most of those alliances have fractured, and each one now has its own list," says Iman al-Barazenchi, an Iraqi National Accord candidate for the Baghdad provincial council. Secular candidates say disillusionment with the legacy of those blocs is also creating a shift toward a more nonsectarian type of politics. "The Islamic party and the Islamic movements are retreating from the Iraqi streets. The Iraqi streets are becoming non-Sunni and non-Shi'ite," says another secular candidate, Nebras al-Ma'mouri. "Voters are looking for people outside of these things...