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Few world leaders entered office with as little fanfare as Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer. When he became the interim President of Iraq in June, al-Yawer was viewed by the U.S. and Iraqi politicos who installed him as a malleable neophyte, somebody who would stay in the background while they ran the country. Having spent 20 years away from Iraq, as a student at Georgetown University and a telecommunications executive in Saudi Arabia, he was a stranger to his countrymen. Before his appointment, a poll asked Iraqis to rank 17 political figures in order of popularity. Al-Yawer came in dead last.

But when al-Yawer, 46, arrives at the White House this week for meetings, he is likely to receive a VIP's welcome. As the interim government's highest-ranking Sunni and a sheik of Iraq's most powerful tribe, al-Yawer has become a key U.S. ally. Chronic violence in Sunni-dominated areas has raised doubts about whether significant numbers of Sunnis, who make up 20% of Iraq's population but have ruled the country for more than 80 years, will participate in national elections scheduled for Jan. 30. Last month a group of political parties called for the elections to be delayed six months, saying that a low Sunni turnout would compromise the vote. The White House, though, insists it will stick to its timetable; President Bush declared last week that the U.S. was "very firm" on the Jan. 30 date. To bolster security, the number of U.S. troops will increase by 12,000, to 150,000--the most since the invasion last year.

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The U.S. is counting on al-Yawer to get out the Sunni vote. While most of the prominent Sunni parties are threatening to boycott, al-Yawer told reporters last week that he opposed a delay in the vote. In an interview with TIME in his plush home in Baghdad, al-Yawer reiterated his belief that elections are crucial to subduing the insurgency. "We're anxious to have the election on time," he says. "We're not comfortable with the label 'appointed government,' and we want to have the legitimacy that an election will bring."

Al-Yawer himself stands to gain from the election. Having spent months building a base that includes both Sunnis and Shi'ites, al-Yawer and his party are likely to emerge in a powerful position. Many observers believe al-Yawer has the potential to become what the new Iraq sorely lacks: a moderate Sunni leader who can unite disgruntled Sunnis without alienating the majority Shi'ites. "He has a lot of strengths — a tribal background, a modern attitude, youth," says Iyad al-Samarrai, secretary-general of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest Sunni political group. "He will be an important political figure in Iraq for a long time." Juan Cole, an Iraq expert at the University of Michigan, says, "He's the great white hope of the Sunnis."

There was very little potential on view when al-Yawer assumed the presidency in June. He was a last-minute compromise candidate; as a member of the Shammar tribe, which includes Shi'ites and Sunnis, he was acceptable to both. In the first months of his tenure al-Yawer was rarely seen or heard in Baghdad, overshadowed by the tough-talking Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi. Some criticized al-Yawer for spending too much time in other Arab capitals. But those weren't pleasure trips. Says a Western diplomat in Baghdad: "If you asked the leaders of neighboring countries who they'd be most comfortable doing business with in Iraq, they would all point to al-Yawer."

Unlike Allawi, al-Yawer has at times been critical of the U.S., questioning, for example, the strategy of using massive force to bring the insurgency to heel in cities like Samarra and Fallujah. "Since the attack on Fallujah," he told TIME, "violence has escalated everywhere, even in Mosul, where things were quite calm before." His criticisms have won him admirers in the Sunni triangle, where government figures are regarded with scorn. Even the radical Association of Muslim Scholars, which is calling for a boycott of the election, offers guarded praise. Al-Yawer, says association spokesman Abdul- Salam al-Qubaisi, "is saying the right things, but we have to see if he takes the right actions."

Al-Yawer isn't sitting still. In the fall, he married his second wife, Nasrin Barwari, a Kurdish minister of public works in the interim government. Cole says Barwari gives al-Yawer nationwide appeal unmatched by any other politician. Al-Yawer, who has four children from another marriage, maintains that the union had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with romance. Asked how he managed to find time for that in his busy schedule, he says, "If you're not capable of love, how can you love your country?" Sounds like a pretty good campaign slogan.

• Bobby Ghosh/Baghdad