BAGHDAD (Reuters) - As political parties and businesses take advantage of a power vacuum in a country with as yet no elected government, constitution or parliament, Baghdad has become a city of graffiti.
Walls around the city of five million have been smothered with competing slogans since three decades of stifling state control and dictatorship ended in April with the ousting of Iraq's president Saddam Hussein.
A plethora of political parties and newspapers then appeared, but state television has been steadfastly apolitical and the press reaches only a limited part of the population.
The security situation remains tense, preventing political parties holding rallies on the streets.
The interim U.S.-backed authorities have erected pro-democracy signposts enjoining the populace that "we want Iraqis to make their conscience their only censor".
The only public slogans Iraqis knew before April were the pan-Arab mantras of the ruling Baath Party such as: "One Arab nation with one eternal message".
Shops and services could advertise only by cutting a deal with Saddam's all-powerful son Uday. Now there's no regulatory body and advertisers take to the walls.
"All of this writing is the chaos of democracy, but it's good for us. Trade in electronic and domestic appliances has shot up, and there are no taxes to pay because nobody is supervising the ad industry," said Ahmed Abu Shant of Nineveh Advertising.
POLITICAL SLOGANEERING
Politics take up the lion's share of Baghdad's graffiti.
"Yes to the leader Saddam Hussein," says one slogan on a wall on the main road into the city.
"No to the pro-Saddam Al Jazeera channel in Iraq," responds another, referring to the Arab satellite channel which was seen as opposing the war. "Media distortion is a stab in the back."
"Islam is the solution," one message proclaims.
"Democracy is the solution," another answers back.
Supporters of Governing Council member Ahmed Chalabi, a pre-war favourite dissident of the U.S. administration, break the dialogue. "Chalabi is the symbol of freedom," they declare.
"He's the symbol of mendacity," a passer-by offers in disgust.
Even the American rock group Metallica gets a look in, advised in strong terms to get lost in a message daubed in English.
In another street, banners festooning the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan face a wall scrawled with messages from the Free Republican Party demanding sacrifices "for the sake of a free and independent Iraq".
At the central Liberation Square, Islamists and Communists vie for public attention.
"Glory to both the Sunni and Shi'ite martyrs of Islam," says the Islamic Daawa Party. The Communist Party, a lone secular voice amid Iraq's Islamic politics, adds timidly: "Free nation, happy people".
Smaller parties struggle to get a look in. The offices of the United Nasserist Nationalist Party look onto this wall from a fifth floor flat in a building across the street.
"These parties are new and nobody knows them. We don't need to resort to this kind of thing," sniffed spokesman Zeidan Khalaf. The United Nasserists are struggling to survive in the post Arab nationalist era.
MORE TASTE, PLEASE
"Enough!" said the satirical weekly Hababooz in its first issue of November.
"Why are people turning the walls on schools and offices into advertising billboards? At least they could write things that are a bit more tasteful. The walls are crying out for help!"
Editor Ishtar al-Yasiry said the explosion of graffiti in Baghdad was a natural phenomenon now that the lid had been lifted on expression with the end of Baath rule.
"This new `wall culture' provides a forum for people to get feelings out, but it's not very civilised," she told Reuters, pointing to slogans that insulted the honour of Saddam Hussein's family. "The police simply have bigger priorities right now."
Since Saddam's fall security has been a headache for Baghdadis, starting with weeks of heavy looting, night curfews and, recently suicide bomb attacks.
But apart from general references to "independence" and "freedom", there is a marked absence of graffiti commentary on the U.S. military occupation.
"I haven't noticed anything against the Americans, but they are present all over Baghdad, so who's going to trouble themselves?" Yasiry said.
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