Few problems arise for Iraqi elections

Violence minimal

many express support for current leader

"Saturday must be an electoral wedding party," he said Thursday in the northern city of Mosul, where he urged Iraqis to "send a message to the world" that they no longer defined themselves according to religious sect.

His critics among the electorate scoffed at such proclamations. Ali Sami, a pharmacist in Baghdad, said he had voted for the secular Iraqiya slate of former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi in 2005 and planned to do the same this time, although he acknowledged that he was impressed with the security gains achieved in recent months.

Hamid Nazir, a college student in jeans and flip-flops, also rejected al-Maliki's claims of reconciliation.

"Most of those groups are linked to Iran," he said, speaking of al-Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party and other Shiite parties. "I don't like them." He, too, supported Allawi. "People love him. He's secular," Nazir said.

Hussam, the young man near the Tigris, said he was under no illusions that Iraq's Sunni-Shiite animosities were a thing of the past. He was convinced, however, that the mind-boggling violence of the civil war was a thing of the past if al-Maliki remained in power.

"The Shiites still think the Shiite way, and the Sunnis still think the Sunni way, but at least now we don't want to fight," he said before continuing his walk up the river.