BAGHDAD: Their candidates have been assassinated, their party offices attacked, but hopes are mounting among Iraq’s Sunni Arab politicians that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, will not make a serious effort to disrupt next week’s national elections.

Despite threatening to block previous votes, this time the Jordanian militant, who is responsible for most of the terrible suicide bombings which claimed thousands of civilian lives in Iraq, has been silent.

“He’s changed his strategy because he has discovered how confident and determined we are to vote,” Azhar Abdel Majeed al-Samarrai, a leading candidate for the Iraqi Consensus Front, an alliance of the main Sunni parties, told the Guardian.

But predictions of calm are always risky in Iraq. US forces are gearing up for a massive security operation for polling day on Thursday and the Iraqi government has closed the borders to non-Iraqis and declared a state of emergency in Anbar and Nineveh provinces, where the majority of the population is Sunni.

“We are not complacent,” Major General Rick Lynch, a senior military spokesman, told reporters. “The insurgency wants to disrupt the democratic process.” His statement is in line with the Bush administration’s long-standing juxtaposition of bullets versus ballots, and its repeated claim that the insurgency is bound to target any election. But the clear desire of many Sunnis to vote next week has changed the dynamic within the insurgency.

“Zarqawi is in a dilemma because many Sunnis want to vote,” a senior Western political official said this week. The same dilemma confronts Iraq’s home-grown insurgents, who rely mainly on the Sunni population for support and recruits.

A Sunni cleric from the influential Association of Muslim Scholars told worshippers at Baghdad’s Umm al-Qura mosque on Sunday it was a “religious duty” to vote next week. “The date of December 15 is a landmark event. It is a decisive battle that will determine our future. If you give your vote to the wrong people, then the occupation will continue and the country would be lost,” he said.

A crucial moment in the campaign for Sunni votes was the recent murder of Sheikh Ayad al-Izzi, a cleric and engineer who was a leading member of the Iraqi Islamic party and a candidate for the Iraqi Consensus Front. He had just left a campaign rally in Falluja on Nove 28 when gunmen drove past his car and killed him and two colleagues. A huge crowd came to his funeral last week.

“I think Zarqawi will become smaller and smaller, especially after we lost this man from our list,” Azhar Abdel Majeed al-Samarrai said. Perhaps under pressure of mounting Sunni anger, Al-Qaeda in Iraq took no responsibility for the murder and even put out a statement denouncing it.

Ms Samarrai, a university lecturer in microbiology, was speaking at a conference of around 600 women supporters of the Iraqi Islamic party in the Baghdad suburb of Yarmuk on Sunday. Their heads covered with scarves, they listened intently to poems, speeches and songs which were more nationalist than Islamic.

Even as it confronts Zarqawi, the Islamic party is a firm opponent of the American occupation. “We will liberate our country from the enemy no matter how many troops he brings,” a group of three men sang from the stage. “The whole world will witness that.” Women clapped in time to the music. Many held up pictures of the murdered candidate. “Rise up, Baghdad. Rebel, Baghdad. You will not be shaken by the forces of the enemy,” another song went.

Ammar Wajeeb, another leading party member, told the audience that Iraqi women had been through a lot in the past two years. “Your suffering has probably exceeded that of Palestinian women. Most of you have endured the killing of a father, brother, husband, or other relative,” he said. “Count your blessings.

A few months ago I was in Britain for the first time. Compared to women in Britain I felt Iraqi women live with such honour and dignity.” —Dawn/The Guardian News Service