Many Sunnis expected to vote

Iraq's elections will be legitimate if roughly half the Sunni Arab minority votes despite threats of violence, a leading politician in the Shi'ite alliance expected to dominate the polls said yesterday.

Fear of widespread violence in Sunni areas has raised concerns that many Sunnis, once privileged under Saddam Hussein, will not vote, skewing the results in favour of the Shi'ite majority long oppressed by the toppled Iraqi president.

Finance Minister Abdul Mahdi is a senior official in the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, part of a Shi'ite list of candidates in the United Iraqi Alliance expected to win the most seats in parliament after the January 30 poll.

Alliance officials pledged at a news conference to improve security and services in Iraq, where insurgents are waging a relentless campaign of violence aimed at expelling foreign troops and toppling the US-backed interim government.

Iraq's main Sunni party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, has withdrawn from the polls, saying they should be delayed, while the 60 per cent Shi'ite majority is poised to gain power and believes voting should go ahead despite fears of bloodshed.

Shi'ite politicians have repeatedly said Sunnis will have a fair share of power in Iraq after the election to choose a 275-member national assembly, which will draft a constitution.

The alliance, which has the blessing of top Shi'ite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, includes a few Sunni politicians.