BAGHDAD—A few months ago, building on genuine if not universal popularity, Nouri Kamal al-Maliki appeared poised to win a second term as Iraq's prime minister. Now, as Iraqis prepare to vote in parliamentary elections on March 7, his path to another four years in office has become increasingly uncertain, his campaign erratic and, to some, deeply troubling.

Far from consolidating power in the authoritarian manner that has plagued Iraq's history, al-Maliki risks losing it through the ballot box. In a region where the traditional exit from power has been “;the coup or the coffin,”; as one Western diplomat here put it recently, the election has become a crucial test of Iraq's post-invasion democracy, and of al-Maliki's own fate.

How he wins—or perhaps more significantly, how he loses—will more than anything else determine the country's course in the coming years as President Barack Obama carries out his promise to withdraw all American troops.

Even his own supporters acknowledge that al-Maliki now appears isolated, imperious and impetuous, his re-election prospects hurt by events out of his control and by others of his own making.

“;I told him the other day, 'You don't have positions. You have reactions,”;' said Izzat Shabander, an independent Shiite lawmaker who joined the prime minister's electoral coalition and sounded as if he was having second thoughts.

Al-Maliki, who turns 60 in June, could yet prevail. According to politicians and polls conducted by parties and American officials, though not released publicly, al-Maliki's coalition will very likely win a plurality of the new parliament's 325 seats. But it is unlikely to be anywhere near a majority.

To retain his post, he will have to cobble together a postelection coalition among parties whose leaders seem able to unite only in the desire to elect a new leader.

“;The question was not whether they would win but by how much,”; said Kenneth M. Pollack, director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, referring to the confidence he heard in discussions here last year with al-Maliki's aides. “;At this point, they're fighting for their lives.”;

Al-Maliki, an outwardly dour man with a jowly face darkened by a perpetual shadow of a beard, makes a simple case for re-election. He has repeated it over and over during his campaign.

“;Today's Iraq, dear brothers, is not the Iraq of 2005 or 2006”; was how he put it at one rally in Baghdad, referring to the horrific sectarian bloodshed that very nearly devoured the country.

It is both a boast of what his government has accomplished (with American help he rarely acknowledges) and a warning of what could return (when the Americans leave).

Al-Maliki is neither a charismatic leader nor a polished campaigner, but in a country convulsed by chaos and carnage, his message and achievements have resonance, even among his critics.

“;I consider him the savior of the country,”; said Samira Ali, 56, a teacher from in Basra, where al-Maliki ordered a military operation in 2008 that drove out the Shiite militias that once ran rampant across southern Iraq and in Baghdad itself.

Initially viewed as a malleable sectarian figure when he emerged as a compromise candidate for prime minister after Iraq's last parliamentary elections in 2005, al-Maliki has since demonstrated a willingness to act forcefully in the name of Iraqi nationalism and unity, even against those of his own Shiite sect.

His refashioned his party, Dawa, into a coalition he called State of Law, with a campaign that promised security and order, and played down his party's Shiite religious roots. In last year's provincial elections, which elected legislatures for 14 provinces, State of Law fared best of all, making al-Maliki's campaign for re-election almost seem inevitable.

A series of bombings here in the capital in the last six months—as well as a slow boil of violence across Iraq—has certainly eroded his claims to have restored stability. But al-Maliki's challenges extend beyond security alone.

His strategy of building a grand political coalition representing all of Iraq's sects and ethnicities was co-opted by most of his challengers—with better success, arguably, in the case of a coalition lead by a former prime minister, Ayad Allawi, a Shiite who has assembled the strongest cadre of Sunni parties behind him.

Among those al-Maliki unsuccessfully lobbied to join his coalition last fall was the most prominent Sunni subsequently knocked off the ballot, Saleh al-Mutlaq. Other prominent leaders also rebuffed him, including a former speaker of parliament and the head of the Awakening movement in Anbar province that joined with the American military and al-Maliki's government to fight al-Qaida in Mesopotamia.

His most prominent Sunni ally, Sheik Ali Hatam al-Ali Suliman, said the voting bloc he represented in Anbar would never vote directly for al-Maliki. In fact, the candidates there disassociate themselves from al-Maliki, whom he described unenthusiastically as the best of an unappetizing choice.

“;I hope none of them win,”; Sheik Ali Hatam said in an interview.

As the incumbent, al-Maliki has also been hampered by the shortcomings of his government: the lack of development and jobs, grinding poverty, corruption and feeble services, which confront Iraqis every day.

“;It's right to say that he provided security, but we live amid garbage dumps and in shambles,”; said Ali Wardi Mizil, a scantly employed laborer in Basra who said he did not plan to vote for al-Maliki again.

Others attribute al-Maliki's diminished standing to a series of moves that have raised doubts about his respect for the country's balance of power.

Security forces under his direct command have been accused of carrying out politically motivated arrests, while other suspects wanted by American and Iraqi commanders have been placed on “;do not target”; lists by al-Maliki's government. Last month, he ordered the military to intervene in a political dispute over dismissing the governor of Salahuddin province.

His supporters defend such actions as a necessary response to Iraq's immature and volatile politics. “;The Iraqis love a strong ruler,”; said Jabbar Habeeb, a running mate of al-Maliki's in Baghdad.

Still, the Kremlin-like opacity of his decision-making—his own evident paranoia, sharpened by years in exile during Saddam Hussein's rule—have made some of his decisions appear capricious and contradictory.

A Shiite-led vilification of the Baath Party, which resulted in the surprise disqualification of scores of candidates last month, prompted al-Maliki to intensify his own statements to rally the Shiite votes he needs, even as it alienated the Sunnis he had once hoped to win over by appealing to a national Iraqi identity.

When an appeals court initially reversed the disqualifications, al-Maliki denounced the ruling as illegal. Then two days later he reversed himself after meeting with the country's top judge, in what was criticized as inappropriate interference.

“;A naked power play with sectarian overtones in that its most prominent victims are Sunni Arabs,”; the International Crisis Group wrote of the disqualifications in a report released on Thursday, “;it also reopened old wounds and cast a troubling light on Maliki, who only a year ago had won votes by eschewing sectarian rhetoric and has pledged to stitch together a broad nonsectarian electoral alliance.”;

Shabander, the lawmaker, said that al-Maliki sincerely believed in overcoming the country's sectarian divide but that the politics of the de-Baathification forced him to cover his Shiite flank. “;The prime minister was not strong,”; he said, “;because he retreated easily.”;

Tellingly, al-Maliki has delivered most of his campaign speeches in the south, where he is competing for Shiite votes against a largely Shiite coalition that after the 2005 election helped select him as prime minister.

When he met with tribal leaders from Salahuddin on Friday, he held the event in Baghdad rather than traveling to the largely Sunni province.

In his remarks then, al-Maliki reprised his claims to have restored security and promised to improve governance. He then, speaking most forcefully, denounced not only terrorists—or Baathists, an epithet that he uses interchangeably—but also politicians who advanced their cause through democratic means. He called them “;bats who live only in the darkness.”;

“;Now,”; he went on, “;they want to get back through the windows, through the doors, through the elections.”;

Amid oversize posters of him with a raised fist, al-Maliki vowed not to let it happen. “;We worked hard to build the state,”; he said. “;We will not lose it to the whims and caprices of those who want to seize power.”;

Sa'ad al-Izzi contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Mahmoud al-Bachary from Basra.