As Iraq readies itself for elections just six weeks away, there is still no improvement in the security situation. At the time of writing, more than 250 people had been killed in March, according to a tally by the French news agency AFP. On 9 March, 45 people were killed and 157 injured in a bomb attack on a security checkpoint in the city of Al-Hilla, while another series of bomb attacks on 15 March killed 19 people in Baghdad. Parliamentary candidate Mohammed Hussein Hamid, who was going to stand in the coming elections with Saleh Al-Mutlaq’s Al-Arabiya list (GSN 965/5), was shot dead by gunmen in Baghdad on 8 March. He was the second candidate to be assassinated this year, and the security situation for parliamentary candidates is expected to deteriorate; 14 candidates were killed ahead of provincial elections in April 2013 (GSN 952/6).