The situation in Baghdad remains the same, meaning full of anticipation and worries mixed with great hopes. The fuel and electricity crisis are still the same with no improvement at all. The streets are getting filled day by day with signs encouraging people to vote for this party or that, most of the times with no names at all. Just a name and the number of the list with some phrases that shortly describe that list. The signs also varied in their quality from the expensive highly attractive ones for the major parties to the simple peaces of textile with the slogans of the party and the number written in large letters for the smaller parties.I've been hearing less gun shots and explosions lately and I think that's due to two reasons. First the ING and IP have spread all over Baghdad lately with only few hundred meters separating checkpoints in some places. The other possible reason is that the terrorists are probably saving their efforts to the election day and there are many reports that show that they are planning for a wide scale sophisticated and coordinated attacks. I must say that this is highly expected and I would never believe that the Ba'athists and Islamists funded and aided by the intelligence of many Arab and Muslim countries would let the election day pass peacefully.I'm more than sure they are planning for some serious attacks on that day and it's not going to be like Afghanistan where there were only few attacks on few voting centers. The stakes are too high for them just as they are for us. We've been waiting for the moment when we can decide our future all our lives and now it's happening and I can't tell you how excited that makes me and all freedom loving Iraqis. I feel like after voting I would not care what would happen to me. I would say my word, voice my will loud and clear in public for the first time in my life and that means almost everything to me. The terrorist can kill me and many of the Iraqis who are going to vote, but we would die proud. We will regain our self esteem and our pride that Saddam and his thugs took away by humiliating us, torturing and killing our friends and beloved ones infront of our eyes and then spitting in our faces after that, and all we could do was what we had to do to avoid more death and torture, we could only praise them after each murder and each crime. It made us hate ourselves and the whole world, lose our trust in everyone and just keep living a life that was worse than death but one that we still couldn't sacrifice for a good cause fearing for our families fate after our death.This horror, fear, hate and loss of trus is gone now but not entirely. We still feel it and they still remind us with it every day with every beheading and every murder they commit against those who actively try to change things in Iraq for the better. We feel it with various degrees, and for some of us it's turned into an additional motive to fight these thugs and to refuse a life like that even if the only other option is death. I don't want to live like that again, NEVER, and for that reason I'm going to vote and for the same reason I know that so many Iraqis are going to vote and let the terrorists show us the best they can do, as it won't stop us.Nevertheless there are many Iraqis who are still trapped in that circle of fear and hate. They need time, understanding, care and they need someone to show them another way, another option and a reason to take the risk for and a vision for a better future. They need someone to lead and show them again an example of what courage and self respect mean and how it can make your life, and even your death have a very different and a much more honorable meaning. I plan to be one of those who will lead but I know, happily, that I will be only one in a crowd.