US officials in Washington and Baghdad said at the weekend they were confident Iraq's parliamentary and local elections would take place on January 30 in spite of a rising death toll from insurgent attacks.
But one great concern is how the legitimacy of the election will be measured, given the likely absence of a large number of international election monitors.
Ukraine's rerun of its presidential poll on Sunday saw the international community field one of the world's biggest election monitoring operations, including more than 1,350 observers sent by the Vienna-based Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
FT briefing: Iraq‘s elections
Read a summary of the key issues facing efforts to stage nation-wide elections in Iraq on January 30
With Iraq's vote less than five weeks away, offers from international bodies to monitor it have been slow to come. Security concerns remain a worry; at least 24 people have died over the past three days in bombings and assassinations.
An explosion of a fuel tanker on Friday killed nine people and damaged buildings in Baghdad's al-Mansour neighbourhood, site of several foreign embassies.
Insurgents have threatened to step up attacks during the vote. Coalition troops will be keeping their distance from polling stations for fear of compromising the vote's legitimacy, leaving security in the hands of Iraq's overstretched police and national guard.
Safwat Rashid, a commissioner with the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq charged with organising the vote, said the commission had invited several international bodies, including the European Union, the Arab League, and the OSCE to send monitors.
A number of Iraqi human-rights organisations have also asked to observe voting, and monitors will be provided with special badges allowing them to enter more than 6,000 polling stations.
Representatives of candidates will also be allowed to be present at polling stations to monitor the vote's transparency. Other measures to ensure fairness have been put in place, Mr Rashid said, including arrangements for voters' privacy.
International bodies are only now firming up arrangements to watch the vote. Elections Canada, an independent body, hosted a first meeting of seven national bodies in Ottawa last week to set up a "neutral and impartial mission" for Iraq. Jean-Pierre Kingsley, Canada's chief electoral officer, said a final decision on whether to send international observers, or how many, had yet to be made.
He said the forum intended to follow the electoral process "the whole way", if necessary from outside Iraq. "Many things can be done without going into polling stations," he said.
The OSCE said on Friday it had not received a formal request from Iraq to monitor the vote, and a decision to do so would require a consensus decision by its 55 members. The organisation helped monitor the Afghan election.
Jim Kolbe of Arizona, leading a group of US congressmen visiting Iraq last week, said last week he was not aware of plans to send a congressional delegation to observe the election, adding, however: "It would be very valuable to have a delegation here for the election."
A high turnout, perhaps 80 per cent according to opinion polls, is expected among the Shia Arab majority and Kurds, but a question mark hangs over the level of Sunni participation.
US officials and non-government reconstruction experts said there was no target, but that a 30 per cent turnout among Sunnis would be considered a success. "Thirty per cent has been thrown out as a figure that would be politically acceptable," commented one U.S official, who asked not to be named.
A large out-of-country turnout would also help, especially in Jordan, where US officials estimate there are 500,000 Iraqis, mostly Sunnis. The IECI is making arrangements for absentee voting in about 14 foreign countries.
Sunni Arabs are believed to make up 20 per cent or less of Iraq's population, but dominated the Ba'ath party and military under Saddam Hussein's regime, and stand to lose most out of the elections. Most insurgents are Sunni Arabs with their strongholds in central and western Iraq.
A senior State Department official said that normal elections could be held "essentially everywhere" but the western al-Anbar province, site of the former insurgent stronghold of Falluja. Refugees from the city, which saw a major US military offensive last month, began trickling back to the city only last week amid continued fighting.
The US official said the IECI was considering a "special arrangement" for voters in al-Anbar. He gave no details, but said the US was working with the Iraqi government to allow for "as many voting places to be open" as possible for displaced Sunni voters.
