AP Photo

Iraq’s elections next month are a major fork in the road of the country’s post-election development. One way leads towards increasing stability and political freedom; the other marks the route back to sectarianism and violence.

With US troops due to start withdrawing this year, the March 7 polls are generating a sense of nervous anticipation in Baghdad, a city shaken in recent weeks by a serious of explosions that have killed scores and were seen as a clear attempt to undermine, or at least influence, the democratic process.

Iraq has made much progress in the past two years, away from a civil war that pitted Sunni against Shia and left large swathes of the capital, and the country in general, ethnically “cleansed”.

Nouri al-Maliki, the Shia...