Filmmaker: Paul Eedle

Abdulrahman Dheyab, an Iraqi living in London, wanted to serve his home country, so he decided to return to Iraq to stand as a candidate in the 2010 parliamentary elections.

With not much more than his convictions and a taste for grassroots politics, he travelled back to his home village and started his political campaign from scratch.

Witness followed Abdulrahman from London as he returned home full of dreams. But the cut and thrust of Iraqi politics proved to be even dirtier than he expected.

Now, in the second of two programmes, we pick up his story in the final weeks leading up to election day.

Will he be able to realise his fervent dream, for which he has risked so much, or will his idealism turn out to have been misplaced?

This episode of Witness aired from Tuesday, June 15, 2010.