BAGHDAD: Iraq's first elected government in a half-century may enjoy a new found legitimacy but will be burdened by ethnic and religious tensions as well as a heavy reliance on foreign aid and US troops.

The country, carved out of a patchwork of Sunnis, Shias and Kurds in 1920, is now poised to run its affairs for the first time since the Saddam Hussein era ended abruptly with US forces rolling into Baghdad in April 2003.

The full meaning of these elections, in which as many as 14 million people could vote, was made clear by US Ambassador John Negroponte, the White House's discreet enforcer in Iraq.

"These elections are a watershed in Iraq's political development, as they will transition the country from an appointed to an elected government," Negroponte said last week.

However, one coalition official described what he sees as the level of dysfunction that has developed since the all-powerful days of the US-led occupation. "We've let a culture of dependency develop here," he said on condition of anonymity. "Sometimes, Negroponte will say 'Let the Iraqis do it', but I think he's just trying to be funny."

With the vote next Sunday, Iraq embarks on this new experiment in representative politics, but the mission's success is far from assured with mutual distrust, bad blood among the country's sects and a tenacious insurgency burning in central Iraq.

The model is inextricably bound to America's vision of what the post-September 11 world should look like and Washington is not going to just cede its ambitions despite the blood-letting and chaos of the last two years.

"... when a free country emerges in Iraq, I think people will begin to see the wisdom of the policy," President George W. Bush said ahead of his inauguration last week. But after living under US proconsul Paul Bremer and then the US-backed interim government of Iyad Allawi, at long last Iraq's training wheels are coming off.

The achievement will come despite a rebel movement bent on deterring the country's Sunni minority, who make up 20 per cent of the 26-million-strong population, from voting.

Even so, the vote's aftermath will be the moment when Iraqis will truly start to grapple with national issues that have been suppressed for two years. "Up until now, Iraqis have not really dealt with how they are going to get along together.

They have really not begun the conversation of the basis on which they are going to live together," a US embassy official said. "It's going to be a tough, tough conversation." America will nudge Iraq and still hold strings that at least in the short term affect Iraq's policy.

Washington wields enormous influence via 18.4 billion dollars in aid money and the training of the country's security forces. If Iraq takes what Washington perceives as a misstep, such as the Shias steering the country toward theocracy and unleashing a full-on war on the Sunnis, a US official warned the Iraqis would have much to lose. Iraqi officials concede they need American know-how in the short term. -AFP