Today marks the start of election week in Iraq. After a two-month delay and the banning of more than 500 candidates, voters across the country will go to the polls in the country’s first election since 2005. But far more than the 325 seats at stake is the future of a successful democracy.

Gabriel Gatehouse, BBC correspondent in Baghdad reports on the final days of campaigning there. Laith Kubba a former Iraqi politician and currently with the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, D.C. gives his perspective.