Adding to the public discontent is a fuel shortage -- ironic in a country with some of the world's largest petroleum reserves. Motorists must line up for hours behind hundreds of other cars at gasoline stations throughout the city.
Iraq's oil facilities have been the frequent target of insurgent attacks.
Electricity supplies remain erratic, with frequent outages plaguing the city. Residents of some Baghdad neighborhoods complain there has been no garbage collection for weeks, leaving them no choice but to burn their trash.
A nighttime curfew imposed this month under a 60-day state of emergency empties the city shortly after sunset.
The rising tension has prompted many Baghdad parents to keep their children home from school. College students say many of their classmates never showed up for Saturday or Sunday classes. In areas hit by violence, some shops stayed shut.
"If I am meant to die, then there is nothing that I can do about it," said Mohammed Rafid, 18, a computer programming student at Baghdad's Mansour college and one of those who showed up for class yesterday.
Rafid, however, said nearly half of the 46 students in his class stayed home.
Tensions are likely to sharpen as the Jan. 30 election date approaches. The ballot is expected to confirm the domination of Iraq's Shiite community, estimated at 60 percent of the nearly 26 million population.
Victory would allow the Shiites to shrug off decades of oppression by the Sunni Arabs, a powerful minority that had long dominated Iraq. Most Kurds are Sunni, but they are resented by many Arab Sunnis because of their close ties to the Americans and for what are perceived as secessionist tendencies.
Prominent Sunni clerics are calling on supporters to boycott the vote in retaliation for the fighting in Fallujah. A Sunni boycott would greatly undermine the legitimacy of the vote for a 275-member assembly, whose main task will be draft a permanent constitution for Iraq.
The conflicting interests of the Sunnis and Shiites can be seen in the graffiti, banners and posters in Sunni Azamiyah and across the Tigris River in the mainly Shiite district of Kazimiyah.
In Azamiyah, graffiti and banners praise Fallujah's insurgents as heroes and denounce the Iraqi National Guard, which some Sunnis call ``Allawi's Army'' because of the high number of Shiites in its ranks. "Jihad (holy war) is the gift of men," declares one banner.
In Kazimiyah, home to one of Shiism's holiest shrines, Iraqis are urged to register to vote and to take part in the election.
"A vote is worth more than gold," read several banners, purportedly quoting Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shiite cleric who has pushed hard for elections since Saddam's ouster 19 months ago.
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