Campaigning for Saturday's parliamentary election is underway in Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, which was freed from the Islamic State group last summer.

Large areas of the city still lie in ruins and reconstruction and lack of services are foremost on voters' minds.

Many areas still don't have drinking water and electricity mainly comes from generators whose loud, droning noise can be heard everywhere.  

Political placards and billboards are on every street in Iraq's largest Sunni city.

One of the candidates on the ballot will be Sumaiya Ghanem, a Mosul university lecturer and former humanitarian aid worker.  

She is running on behalf of the Iraqi National Alliance, a coalition that includes mainly big Shiite parties but also some Sunni politicians.

On Friday, she met voters in the Old City. Some of them were not shy to tell her what they think about politicians, who they say only listen to them before election time.

One of the issues she is campaiging for is compensation for people who lost their homes in last year's fighting.

The government has promised this but nobody has been paid yet.

She is also speaking out against political corruption and the buying and selling of votes.

One time-honoured way of collecting votes in Iraqi politics is organizing feasts for voters or giving them food baskets as gifts, the latter of which is not alien to Sumaiya Ghanem.

Another issue in Mosul will be whether everyone can vote.

The registration rate remains low and many displaced people have not been able to return because of the destruction and lack of services.