Iraq vote also a test for U.S.
Democracy for Iraqi people is Bush's goal
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|  VIDEO |
 How Iraqis will vote when they head to the polls on Sunday.
 CNN's Brent Sadler on efforts to secure the Iraq-Syria border.
 Iraq's Kurdish region is booming with full employment.
 A rocket attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad killed at least two Americans on the eve of elections. CNN's Anderson Cooper reports.
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(CNN) -- The United States' plan to bring democracy to Iraq faces its most important test Sunday when Iraqis vote in their first multiparty national elections in more than 50 years.
If all goes as planned, it will be a triumph for President Bush, who said in March 2003 he dispatched U.S. troops to Iraq to disarm the nation, "free its people and defend the world from grave danger."
Earlier this month, Bush used his inaugural address to remind the world that "it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture."
But to establish democracy in Iraq, the electoral process will have to overcome threats of violence against voters and polling places, a history of dictatorship and repression, and generations of animosity between the country's Shiite and Sunni sects of Islam.
Foremost, Sunday is the voting day to elect a 275-member national assembly, which will be tasked with drafting a new constitution. Iraqis will vote again in October to approve or reject that document.
The assembly will be Iraq's first multiparty elected government since a 1958 coup by army Gen. Abdul Karim Kassem. Saddam Hussein came to power in 1979 after serving in the administration of a cousin who had run the country from 1968.
Besides the national assembly, voters Sunday will choose provincial councils, and the northern area of Kurdistan will choose a regional assembly.
Once seated, the national assembly will choose a president and two vice presidents. The president will appoint a prime minister. The mandate of the interim government, led by Ayad Allawi, expires Monday, but official election results won't be ready until 10 days after the election, said Fareed Ayar, a spokesman for the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq.
"We believe we can actually carry out these elections in the best manner possible and we believe it will be very free, fair and transparent elections," Izzadeen al Mohammadi, a commission member, said Tuesday.
Hostile conditions
But the obstacles are still formidable. An Iraqi police official said last week that intelligence shows 150 car bombs and 250 suicide attackers were ready to strike in the days and hours before the voting, violence that would compound almost-daily attacks against U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies.
To try to prevent violence that might disrupt voting, Iraq's interim government has expanded a curfew and ordered other security measures. (Full story)
In a Wednesday news conference, Bush urged Iraqis to go to the polls.
"I urge people to defy these terrorists. "These terrorists do not have the best interests of the Iraqi people in mind. ... They're afraid of a free society."
In the past week, a statement allegedly recorded by insurgent leader and al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, designated any participants in the electoral process, including voters, as enemies of Islam, a status punishable by death.
But 18 months of fighting have already taken a toll on enthusiasm.
Abd El-Rahman Al-Zobari, surveying the damage to his Falluja house earlier this month, said he and his friends are not going to vote Sunday.
"Is this what they call democracy?" he said. "We don't want democracy that comes on the back of a tank."
Al-Zarqawi loyalists and other insurgents continue to take a heavy toll on Iraqis and Americans alike. In the past seven days, at least 30 Iraqis and 17 Americans have been killed by insurgent attacks. More than 1,400 Americans have died in Iraq since the war began, nearly 1,100 of those by hostile fire.
Ethnic divisions
Part of al-Zarqawi's recent statement illustrates what may be a key stumbling block in the electoral process.
"You have to be careful of the enemy's plots that involve applying democracy in your country and confront these plots," the statement said, "because they only want to do so to ... give the rejectionists the rule of Iraq. And after fighting the Baathists ... and the Sunnis, they will spread their insidious beliefs, and Baghdad and all the Sunni areas will become Shiite. Even now, the signs of infidelity and polytheism are on the rise."
Shiites comprise about 60 percent of Iraq's population and were persecuted under the regime of Saddam, a Sunni Muslim. Shiites are also the majority in neighboring Iran, a longtime enemy of Iraq.
Sunni clerics have threatened to lead a boycott of the elections, and Sunni leaders have expressed concern about receiving enough future government positions to provide representation for their community. About 20 percent of Iraqis are Sunnis.
Seats in the national assembly will be distributed based on a system of proportional representation. Voters cast their ballots for a slate of candidates, and seats are awarded based on that slate's percentage of the total vote.
A candidate or slate of candidates would need to get about 27,000 votes to qualify for a seat in the national assembly, said Carina Perelli, head of the U.N. Electoral Assistance Mission to Iraq. The official ballot has 111 lists of candidates.
Every third candidate on each list must be a woman, with a mandate that women occupy a quarter of seats in the assembly.
The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq said Thursday that 12.9 million Iraqis had registered to vote in the country. Registration was continuing, and in some less-secure provinces, voters will be able to register on election day. Iraqi voters will cast their ballots at 30,000 polling stations with 90,000 ballot boxes across the country.
In addition, more than 280,000 expatriate Iraqis had registered to vote in locations from Nashville, Tennessee, to the Netherlands.
Wednesday, Bush described his sentiments about the election, saying when ballots are cast and the democratic process is in full swing, it will be "a grand moment for those who believe in freedom."
