BAGHDAD: Driven by historical grievances, Iraq's majority Shias see Sunday's election as their path to power in the land where Shiaism was born 13 centuries ago.

From Basra to Baghdad via the shrines of Najaf and Karbala, Shias feel they are about to gain their birthright after centuries marked by martyrdom, rebellion and yearning - and decades of persecution by toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.

Guided by Iraq's top Shia cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, many Shia leaders say they seek only a fair share of power for their long-oppressed community, not the exclusion of the traditionally dominant Sunni Arab minority.

Since the US-led invasion, Sistani has advocated ballots, not bullets, as the best way to promote Shia interests. Sunday's election is the fruit of his insistence that former US administrator Paul Bremer reverse his original plan, which envisaged elections only after a constitution had been written.

The reclusive Najaf-based scholar disavows any political ambition, but the main Shia electoral slate, the United Iraqi Alliance, was forged under his auspices late last year.

It may emerge as the biggest bloc in the new 270-seat assembly, whose main task is to draft a permanent constitution that will shape Iraq's destiny and the balance between its competing sectarian and ethnic communities.

Yet it could face a tough challenge from another alliance led by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shia. Religious and secular Shia leaders are wary about the danger of civil strife if Sunnis boycott the polls and realize that governing Iraq requires consensus and compromise, but many in their community will simply want to celebrate victory.

A woman weeping uncontrollably at the Kadhimain Shrine in Baghdad, where the seventh and ninth Shia Imams, are buried, gave vent to widely-felt sentiments. "They killed us.

They threw us in the streets and left us with nothing," she cried, referring to 35 years of Baathist rule when thousands of Shia clerics, scholars and professionals were killed and a 1991 Shia revolt was crushed.

"We are the oppressed. God grant victory for the Shias, to those who love Imam Ali," she shouted as worshippers in the shrine stopped to comfort her. Towering above the election posters outside the gold-domed Kadhimain Shrine is a giant mural of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Sadr, the mentor of many Shias who fought Saddam.

Sadr was executed in 1980, along with his sister, after refusing pleas to recant his opposition to the Iraqi leader. Sistani took a different path, staying out of politics in Saddam's time, but this has not eroded his influence.

"The Sistani list will win most votes because its members made their name fighting Saddam," said worshipper Kamel Subhi. But the path to power - and even voting - may be bloody.

A pamphlet circulating in the Kadhimiya district outside the Kadhimain mosque warns Shia residents not to vote. Its heading bears a Quranic verse, "Kill them where you find them", the motto of militant Sunni groups opposed to the polls.

"They do not want the Shias to vote," said Sayyed Ali al-Waeth, a senior aide to Iranian-born Sistani in Kadhimiya. "They are trying to cast us as Persians. But we are nationalists," he remarked. -Reuters