The beleaguered graphic designer at Alwan Publisher–a print shop that was bustling last week with orders from candidates looking to replenish their campaign posters–was jaded about his part in the machinations of democracy.
As Qahtan Ghazi alternately worked on two PCs loaded with designs for 30 candidates running in parliamentary elections set for Thursday, his own sarcastic, mock election poster popped up on one of the screens.
“Vote for Qahtan Ghazi of List 666,” the mock-up with a garish purple background read. “I promise that I will crush all the people of Iraq!”
It seems as though every flat surface in this city is covered with campaign posters for candidates claiming to have the answers and intestinal fortitude to quell the insurgency.
Billboards advertising cell phones and cigarettes have been replaced by ads selling Sunni nationalism and Shiite unity. Much of the commercial airtime on Iraqi television stations and Arabic satellite channels is taken by ads for candidates claiming they have the answer for a better Iraq.
TV spots run gamut
The television ads range from sophisticated narratives that look like they were produced by a Madison Avenue agency to rants that have the production quality of a home movie.
In preparation for the vote, Iraq’s government announced Sunday that it will close its borders, extend the nighttime curfew and restrict domestic travel starting Tuesday to prevent insurgents from disrupting the election.
“We are very prepared for the elections, and we are highly determined,” Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said. “We hope that everyone participates and that it will be a safe day. … We are at a historic juncture.”
On Monday, Iraqis in hospitals, military camps and prisons cast ballots in early voting for a new National Assembly, The Associated Press reported.
It has been less than a year since Iraqis went to the polls in the first national election, when they voted for an interim general assembly tasked with writing the constitution. The atmosphere for this election is remarkably different.
Last time around, Sunni leaders called on their followers to stay away from the polls. This time Sunni leaders like Adnan Dulaimi and Saleh Mutlaq are hoping to mobilize a huge Sunni turnout to slice away at the Shiite-Kurdish bloc’s hold on power.
As a result, Sunni and Shiite leaders are making a pitched effort to grab each vote they can and are relying more on print and television ads to gain attention for their candidates. Soldiers are distributing handbills for their candidates at guard posts; school-aged boys with buckets of adhesive and arms loaded with posters have wallpapered the capital, and followers of some candidates seem to be lurking in the shadows waiting to deface their opponents’ bills.
The advertising blitz has left some Iraqis suffering from campaign fatigue.
Among the campaign promises on designs that Ghazi has been working on are: improving security, ending unemployment and ending the U.S. military presence in Iraq.
“I don’t write the texts,” Ghazi said as he showed a poster he designed for government spokesman Laith Kubba, who is heading his own list. “Do you actually think these things are going to happen on the ground?”
Art of dirty politics
Ghazi’s skepticism is reasonable. In this fledgling democracy, the partisans already have learned the art of negative politics.
The most frequent target of attacks has been former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who is hoping to play the spoiler in the election.
On Palestine Street in the capital, anonymous Allawi bashers have affixed posters that fuse one-half of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein’s face with Allawi’s.
Throughout the city’s Shiite neighborhoods, Allawi’s billboards have been splattered with black paint and his posters have been ripped from walls.
Maryam Rayes, who is running on a list headed by Ahmad Chalabi but says she is an admirer of Allawi’s, said she recently had a call from a friend who was watching as police officers tore down posters in broad daylight of Allawi and other candidates near the Bab Shurji market.
“You look in certain areas, and it is only certain candidates’ lists that are being vandalized–Allawi or maybe those of the IIP [the Sunni-dominated Iraqi Islamic Party],” she said.
Another poster takes a swipe at Allawi’s former defense minister, Hazem Shaalan, who has been accused by members of the current Shiite-controlled government of misspending hundreds of millions of dollars of the government’s money.
The poster features a picture of a sneering Shaalan pasted on a background of flames.
The text on the poster reads “After they burned Iraq, they stole its money and ran away.”
At the Alwan print shop, the flood of advertising is disdained by the very people who are profiting from it.
Mohammed Hussain, 48, a courier who was picking up posters at the print shop to deliver to Najaf, said the glut of advertising is confusing and wasteful.
He said he believes nothing that he reads.
“They all say the same things,” Hussain said. “They are all a bunch of promises that will turn out to be lies.”
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amadhani@tribune.com
