Carlos Valenzuela is a man with an unenviable mission.
As the United Nations top election expert in Iraq, it's his job to make sure that a credible ballot takes place next week.
The electoral commission he is advising has been subjected to a brutal campaign of intimidation and murder by insurgents bent on disrupting the poll. Valenzuela himself is shadowed 24 hours a day by two burly South African bodyguards.
The 47-year-old Colombian, a veteran of 14 other battlefield elections, believes the risks in Iraq are so high because the country's future hangs in the balance.
"Transitional elections are always very difficult. There's a lot of hope in them, and a lot of fear. They are very intense moments in a country's history, and it's very fulfilling to be a part of that," he said.
Valenzuela doesn't like to court the limelight. He's not the fiery champion of democracy one might expect, rather a modest and softly spoken man with darkly handsome good looks and flowing locks. Diplomat friends describe him as a world-class salsa dancer and food connoisseur, although Valenzuela says he no longer has any time off.
He spoke to The Irish Times flanked by his machine gun-wielding guards in the heavily fortified Green Zone. Iraq's elections should, he insisted at the outset, be the only focus of attention.
Since coming to Iraq a year ago as head of a 35-member UN election advisory team, Valenzuela has thought about little else.
His job then was to assess whether elections could be held ahead of an American transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi government. Senior Iraqi clerics had said they did not trust the Americans, and would only accept the verdict of the UN.
It was an important test for the organisation, battered by scandals over its management of the oil-for-food programme and accused of being "irrelevant" by the White House in the lead-up to war.
The delegation was also the first to Iraq since a massive truck bomb in August struck the organization's headquarters in Baghdad, killing UN head Sergio de Mello and 22 others.
Valenzuela said he was aware of anti-UN feelings in the Bush administration. "For myself, I was wholeheartedly against the war. But in coming to Iraq it was important to put that behind me." He found there wasn't enough time to arrange the electoral lists before the June 30th transfer of sovereignty, "although there was a huge desire to hold elections".
His next task was to help set up and advise Iraq's electoral commission, the independent body tasked with running the January 30th poll.
Organising a ballot in the teeth of a full-blown insurgency was a "daunting challenge" said Valenzuela, but one he is particularly suited to do.
He's been observing elections since 1993, when he left NGO work in Columbia and a university posting to take part in the UN-sponsored poll in Cambodia. Since then he's worked in South Africa, Liberia and East Timor, to name a few.
In September, Valenzuela took up his position as an advisory member of the electoral commission's board. Priorities were setting up a nationwide organization to register voters and supervise the poll, and a massive education campaign both for polling officials and political parties.
The commission tried to convince Iraq's political parties that the system of joint party lists of candidates did not have to follow strictly ethnic lines.
"Many politicians didn't seem able to think beyond their own ethnic groups. We encouraged them to form national alliances," said Valenzuela.
The initiative has only been partly successful. Shia-dominated lists like the United Iraqi Alliance contain some prominent Sunni members, but most Sunni parties have refused to stand either in joint lists or separately. Voter turnout in Sunni tribal areas is expected to be low.
Far more effective has been the process of hiring a nationwide staff to run the election.
Valenzuela said that eight thousand election officials have now been hired to staff 5,000 polling stations across the country. About 12.5 million Iraqis are registered to vote, just under half of the population.
"Preparations have been made all over the country so every eligible voter who wants to go out to vote can do so," said Valenzuela - including in Sunni areas of the country where the insurgency is at its fiercest.
Special measures are being introduced to the voting rules to encourage residents from troubled towns like Falluja and Mosul to vote. They will be able to register and vote on the same day at polling stations outside violent areas.
Valenzuela said there had been an intense campaign of intimidation by insurgents against officials including eight assassinations.
But so far there have been relatively few resignations, he said.
Valenzuela has been an outspoken defender of the commission, in November contradicting UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who said there was a risk the commission would not be able to hold credible elections in time.
He said: "Security in a transitional election is never good, never ideal. But it doesn't disqualify elections from taking place.
"I have said, and I continue to say, that we are on track. Violence will not stop this election," he said.
The effort of organizing the elections - the biggest logistical exercise since the war - has not been without its toll on Valenzuela, although he doesn't like to admit it. He spends most of his days locked away in meetings inside the concrete barricades of the Green Zone.
"I have no social life any more," said Valenzuela, as his guards prepared to usher him along.
He dismissed the personal danger he is under in Baghdad with a wave of his hand.
"The important thing is always the elections, and to convince Iraqis this is a real election - not a Micky Mouse election. I think that many people will go out and take the risk to vote."