“FREEDOM,” President Bush said in his inauguration speech on Thursday, “must be chosen and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law.”

In Baghdad, the crucible of his mission to replace tyran- ny with democracy, there is little sign of the rule of the law, and how many Iraqis will dare to exercise their new-found right to vote in next Sunday’s elections remains to be seen.

A poll released by the International Republican Institute yesterday suggested that 80 per cent of Iraqis were likely to vote, but those questioned by The Times in Baghdad and Mosul were less certain.

Most agree that the elections are an event of exceptional importance, the first opportunity they have ever had to flex their democratic muscle. The elections will choose a 275-seat parliament, which will in turn appoint a new government and president and draw up a new constitution.

But many Iraqis feel intimidated by fanatical extremists bent on derailing the ballot by attacking either the 5,500 polling stations or those who vote.

Many are confused by a campaign where more than 7,400 candidates are standing on the “lists” of no less than 111 parties or alliances. Many of those candidates are returned exiles, few dare show their faces and some will not even name themselves for fear of assassination.

Decades of dictatorship have left an ingrained suspicion of politics. Some argue that an election held with 170,000 foreign troops on their soil, and with a low-level conflict being fought across the heartland, cannot be free and fair. Few of Iraq’s Sunni minority are expected to vote, either from fear of reprisals or because the elections will inevitably transfer power to the country’s Shia majority.

In short, Mr Bush’s policy of championing worldwide democracy is about to encounter its first serious reality check.

Faris Hazem, 31, Christian Arab mechanic in Mosul

I do not know whether I will vote. I do not think so. If everyone else does then maybe I will. I do not know who is standing, I have not seen any candidates, I do not know what the different parties stand for.

What I do know is that I am afraid. I am a Christian. It is dangerous for us in Mosul. It is dangerous to be seen talking to you and the Americans. I know all the people in my neighbourhood and they are all right. But people come from outside and they make trouble.

Look at the slogans written in front of my house, on the wall of the school across the road [which may be used as a polling station on election day]. I’ll read them for you: ‘Down with Allawi [the Prime Minister]. Down with the elections. We warn everyone against voting. Long live the Mujahidin [insurgents].’

This is the only message about the election that I have seen. I’m not afraid of slogans but I do fear the people behind them.

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