Shiite rivalry focuses on Basra

January 15, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

BASRA, Iraq (AP) — Freed last year from the grip of militias, Basra has emerged as the main battleground for rival Shiites in elections for control of the oil-rich south — a race that will test the power of religious parties and the influence of neighboring Iran.

The Jan. 31 ballot, in which voters across the country will choose ruling provincial councils, will be the first since U.S.-backed Iraqi forces wrested control of Basra from Shiite militias and criminal gangs.

American officials will be watching the outcome for any sign that the militias might return in Iraq’s second-largest city of about 2 million people, located only a few miles from the Iranian border.

More than 1,000 candidates have entered the race for Basra’s 35 council seats, filling the city’s dusty and traffic-choked streets with campaign posters and fliers that give the city a festive look. The outcome will help shape the political future of the southern Shiite heartland ahead of national elections expected by year’s end.

Basra has been relatively quiet since last year’s military crackdown, which ended three years of Shiite militia rule, rampant crime and turmoil. Today, thousands of national police and army soldiers patrol its streets.

At the commercial heart of the city, the soldiers and policemen rub shoulders with the thousands of residents who throng stores until late into the night. With militiamen off the streets, women are out in public again — some unaccompanied by male chaperons and wearing makeup.

Music CDs and DVDs of Western and Egyptian films are back in the stores. Those items were once banned by militias; merchants who defied the gunmen risked death.

The battle for Basra is being fought politically, with Shiite religious parties more divided than ever after their emergence as Iraq’s dominant political force after the ouster of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-led regime in 2003.

No single party is expected to win a majority of seats. But Fadhila and the Supreme Council, which is allied with al-Maliki in the national government and has been a reliable U.S. ally despite its ties to Iran, are expected to top the winners.

That will likely push them into deals with smaller parties to form a majority.