STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
It's election time in Iraq. Iraqis go to the polls on Saturday, the first parliamentary elections since ISIS took over a third of the country in 2014 and held it for years. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is running for re-election largely based on success at eventually defeating that group. NPR's Jane Arraf reports from a nation that has undergone a lot of change since the last election.
JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: This is a campaign rally for Prime Minister Haider Haider al-Abadi. It's in an overwhelmingly Shiite area of Baghdad, Sadr City. Abadi is also Shiite like every prime minister since Saddam Hussein was toppled. It still matters a lot in Iraqi politics whether you're Shiite or Sunni or Kurdish or Arab. But increasingly, security and sectarianism are not the first things on people's minds. Eight years ago, Iraq was emerging from civil war. Four years ago, there were suicide car bombs at campaign rallies in this neighborhood. And now...
(CHEERING)
ARRAF: ...They've just released a flock of doves. They're flying in circles over the stadium as blue balloons go up in the air. I'm surrounded by young guys wearing blue T-shirts with Abadi's logo on them.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting in foreign language).
ARRAF: People in the crowd didn't seem to care that Abadi's microphone didn't work. A lot of them were bussed in from other poor neighborhoods, like Um Fatma. She says she was expecting food or money, but all she got was a campaign hat.
UM FATMA: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: "If he does something for me, I'll vote for him - if he doesn't, I won't. I can't pay the rent. And I swear to God, I have no food left in the house to feed the children." Abadi is a U.K.-educated engineer, considered moderate. His other big message, like this one at a rally in the south of Iraq, is all about the economy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRIME MINISTER HAIDER AL-ABADI: (Through interpreter) Today we need unity and integrity to achieve our second victory, which is reconstruction, creating jobs and providing services. It is not an easy task. It will take sacrifices. But believe me, with cooperation and unity and working together, we can achieve miracles.
ARRAF: Working together would be a kind of miracle in itself. In this election, there are 27 coalitions with 143 different parties running. They range from Islamic religious parties to communists. Abadi's main rival is a paramilitary commander with ties to Iran. Hadi al-Amiri's support comes from a divisive source - the former militias now called Popular Mobilization Forces. They're feared by some Iraqis, but as Amiri points out in an interview with NPR, they're also credited with stopping ISIS forces from reaching Baghdad.
HADI AL-AMIRI: (Through interpreter) Of course the love of the people for the Popular Mobilization Forces is huge. People appreciate the sacrifices by the Popular Mobilization members to preserve and protect Iraq.
ARRAF: Here's another big factor in these elections - a lot of these voters are young. More than 3 million Iraqis have turned 18 since the last elections, and they're eligible to vote for the first time. Now they have more security, they're looking for taste of prosperity. Near the Friday book market on al-Mutanabbi Street, I run into one of the youngest candidates. Ali Mohammad Nouri (ph) turned 30 just two days before the deadline to register.
ALI MOHAMMAD NOURI: (Through interpreter) I want to defend the rights of the deprived youth and their wasted college degrees. I hope this election will be based on qualifications and not quotas.
ARRAF: Sajad Jiyad, head of the Al-Bayan Center, a Baghdad think tank, says these elections mark a new era.
SAJAD JIYAD: I think the most important thing for Iraqis is they want to see the state moving on from war, and that means a focus on services, a focus on job creation, paying attention to the 60 percent of Iraq's population who are now under 30 years old.
ARRAF: Those people, he says, care about the future and not Iraq's troubled sectarian past. Jane Arraf, NPR News, Baghdad. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
