IRAQIS used to joke that there were only three paying jobs in the country — soldier, policeman or government office cleaner — all of which carried the risk of being killed. Now there is a fourth job on the market, and by far the most dangerous: election official.

“Mohammed” is one. He refuses to divulge his real name. Totally unprotected and high on the guerrillas’ hitlist, he will speak only by telephone, and even then only after double checking that he is speaking to a bona fide journalist.

For the past four months he has been setting up an election centre in western Baghdad, with ten sub-stations. His work will enable 29,000 voters to cast their ballots, should they defy the insurgents’ warning of reprisals and turn out. On Sunday he and as many as 200,000 election officials, including monitors and guards, will be on the front line as they man the 5,200 polling stations that are bound to be the terrorists’ top targets.

“My family asked me many times to quit, but I always tell them it’s not for the money, it’s for the future of Iraq and I’m serving my country. The salary itself is not worth it. It’s only $200 (£106) a month,” he told The Times.

Such courage and selflessness is not shared by all the election workers. The election commission’s director in Mosul, the third-largest city in Iraq, said that he had less than half the 800 commission officials that he needed because so many had quit after receiving death threats.

Mohammed is all too familiar with the problem. Two of his workers received threats by phone. One was sent a letter accusing him of being a heathen: extremist Islamist groups say that democracy is a form of blasphemy, putting the rule of Man above the rule of God.

He, too, has serious fears for his safety. “I wish I’d had more training how to protect myself,” he said. “At the same time, I wish there was more security, with the voting centres being really protected. I hope it’s not just words, as people say it is. There’s a possibility that the protection is not all they say it will be.”

Even those with protection are not safe in Baghdad. A senior election official, accompanied by five bodyguards, was dragged from his car in the city centre last month and shot in the head in the street. Yesterday bombers again targeted the offices of Iyad Allawi, the interim Prime Minister.

In a city where nobody is safe, Mohammed believes that there is only one way to go: to crush your fear and plough on. “I took this job because I believe it’s our redemption from all the tragedies and terrorists, and at the end of all this we will have an elected government,” he said. “Of course I’m afraid, like any other person in Iraq, but I feel a responsibility to my country, to which I’m devoted.”

Nevertheless, he changes his route to work every day and the election centre he runs is in a different part of town, giving him at least some anonymity.

At least eight election officials have been murdered for trying to organise the polls. Dozens of others, many of them guards, have died in mortar attacks on schools that will be used as voting centres. Indeed, anyone linked to the elections risks a gruesome death at the hands of extremists. Last week insurgents released a video showing the killing of two Iraqis working for an American communications company equipping election centres in the north of Iraq.

Apart from the huge risks, the logistics of organising Iraq’s first multiparty election in decades are immense. Every day four Boeing 747s fly into the United Arab Emirates laden with electoral material to be shipped to the polling centres.

The commission is bringing in 90,000 collapsible cardboard booths to accommodate 14 million voters, hundreds of gallons of indelible ink to prevent multiple voting, and 60 million ballot papers for the hundreds of parties registered for both national and local elections.

Amid the rising tension, no one knows how many people will turn out, or whether the polls will stem the insurgency or accelerate its descent into civil war. Even Mohammed, staking his life on the election, cannot be sure what it will mean for Iraq. “I cannot give you my answer now,” he said. “The fruits of the elections will only be seen afterwards.”

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