BAGHDAD -- Less than two weeks before the Jan. 30 vote, Iraqis' frustration is rising as they prepare for the most important election of their lives amid a climate of fear, insecurity and scant information.

There have been no public debates or voter fact booklets to help citizens wade through the 111 lists of candidates for the new national assembly, which will write the country's constitution. Iraqis still don't know where they will vote, what the ballots will look like or, because of assassination fears, the names of more than 7,400 candidates.

"How can we vote for people when we don't even know their names yet?" asked Heider Khalid, 21, a mathematics student at Baghdad University. "This is such a critical vote. We don't know nearly enough."

Insurgents intensified their campaign to subvert the ballot Tuesday, as a suicide bomber struck the Baghdad headquarters of Iraq's biggest Shiite political party. Three people died when the suicide driver detonated his vehicle at a checkpoint in front of offices of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Republic in Iraq. Elsewhere, three candidates were slain.

To bolster security on election day, Iraqi authorities announced Tuesday they will close the nation's borders for three days starting Jan. 29, restrict travel inside the country and expand the hours of the nighttime curfew. About 300,000 Iraqi and multinational troops will provide security - with Iraq's fledgling forces taking the primary role.

The violence is only one hurdle voters face on election day. Their experiment in democracy is shaping up as a confusing array of choices and few hard facts.

On Baghdad's busiest shopping street, laborer Abdallah Jasim scanned the hundreds of campaign posters vying for his attention. Slapped on fences, light poles and anything else that will stand still long enough, colorful banners spout slogans of unity and one-word platforms such as "Security," "Peace" or, in a sign of Iraq's ongoing infrastructure problems, "Electricity."

It's a jumble of unfamiliar coalition names, symbols and three-digit numbers urging voters to remember a particular party when they open their ballots on election day. Each voter will select a single party, which will be allotted assembly seats based on how many votes it gets.

For Jasim, who hasn't decided which party to support, the blizzard of posters and platitudes is of little help.

"We don't know who these people are," he said. "The posters offer nothing. We don't know what numbers represent which parties. There's a long list of promises, but who knows if they will keep them or not?"

In the absence of facts or aggressive campaigning, electoral experts predict that Iraqis will have little choice but to revert to religious affiliation or ethnicity when making a decision. Shiite Muslims will vote for Shiites, Kurds for Kurds.

Members of Islam's Sunni branch, if they vote at all, will seek out a Sunni party.

U.S. and Iraqi officials had long hoped to shift Iraq away from such sectarianism, fearing that long-simmering animosities would ignite a civil war. But so far, most parties have been unable or unwilling to communicate their positions beyond the religious or ethnic makeup of their candidates.

"Whenever there's a lack of information about the people and the parties, voters turn to the next-best thing, which is: `This is somebody like me,'" said an election official with a nongovernmental organization in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "As much as Iraqis talk about unity, they still feel very strongly about who they are."

U.S. officials acknowledge that the campaign so far remains largely superficial.

"It's all apple pie and motherhood, and it sounds wonderful," said a senior U.S. Embassy official in Baghdad, who also requested anonymity. "One would like to have more campaigning and better information."

But given Iraq's security challenges, weak media and the population's lack of experience with elections, he said, the current campaign is probably the best that can be achieved.

"I suspect a lot of Iraqis will know enough to feel they can make a choice," he added. "I don't think it's a totally blind thing. It's less adequate than one might desire. But it's certainly more than they had before."

A party led by interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a Shiite who fought Saddam Hussein with backing from the CIA, has launched one of the most aggressive campaigns. Allawi is running television and newspaper advertisements, touting his experience and promising "strong leadership." Last month he vowed that candidates in his party would campaign proudly and openly. "The insurgents are masked," he said. "We cannot be masked."

But his team, like nearly every other, has refused to publish its candidates' names. Electoral officials predict the names will be released a few days before Jan. 30 or perhaps on election day.

The leading Shiite party, called the United Iraqi Alliance, has based its campaign on one image: a picture of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the popular cleric who helped select the candidates. "There's not much more to say," said Saad Jawad, a campaign official working on the slate.

Some voters disagree. Frustrated by the lack of information, Noures Anni, 21, another Baghdad University student, has decided not to vote at all.

"These ads don't tell us enough," she said. "They are all lies."

The bewildering array of vague, similar-sounding party names is enough to confuse even experienced voters. There's the National Democratic Alliance, the National Democratic Union, the National United Coalition, the United Democratic Gathering and the United National Federal List, just to name a few.

In addition to confusion over how such lists differ politically, there has been almost no information about who is funding them.

There's speculation that firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr supports candidates on more than one list, but officially his office insists he is boycotting the election. Iran and Syrian intelligence are believed to be backing some lists, though no evidence has emerged to bolster such claims and no law requires such disclosure.

Women must make up one-fourth of the candidate lists, but little is known about the majority of women in the running.

"We are trying to shed light on some of the more shadowy slates, but this is a problem for both voters and the media," said Abdul Zahra Zaki, editor of Al Mada newspaper, a respected left-leaning publication in Baghdad.

Zaki has assigned five reporters to cover the vote and devoted full pages and special sections to various campaigns.

But even his reporters have been unable to identify all the candidates and backers of the leading parties. It's easy to see why voters are tempted to rely on ethnicity or personal contacts to navigate the field.

Baghdad resident Ashur Sliwa, a 22-year-old Christian, has tried to keep abreast of the various lists but acknowledged he has learned little about their goals or platforms.

So he's leaning toward simply voting for one of the Assyrian Christian slates.

"This is an opportunity for me to do something so my people can be represented in the government," Sliwa said.

Mosques, tribes and clans will wield considerable clout, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. Traditionally respected members of society are instrumental in making important decisions or settling disputes.

Khalid, the math major, said he'd probably ask his city councilman and local elders for guidance.

"It's not clear to me yet," he said. "They should have better information. They will tell us who to vote for."

Many Iraqis are embracing their new freedom to vote, even if they don't know how they will exercise it.

Amid the campaign-related violence Tuesday, there was one positive development. A Catholic archbishop kidnapped in northern Iraq was released without payment of ransom, the Vatican said. Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa, an Iraqi, said he believes he was kidnapped by mistake.

But an American soldier was killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad, and more foreigners were reported kidnapped, including Lebanese businessman Jebrail Adeeb Azar and eight Chinese construction workers. The Chinese were shown held hostage by gunmen claiming the captives worked for a company that deals with Americans.

Early today, a truck bomb exploded near the Australian Embassy in Baghdad and a half-hour later a car bomb shook a police station in the Iraqi capital, with the blasts killing a total of eight people, police and officials said.

A third, smaller explosion was heard and smoke was seen rising near the Green Zone, the heavily fortified compound housing the U.S. Embassy and Iraq's interim government offices.

By EDMUND SANDERS
Los Angeles Times