Iraqis vote amid sporadic violence

A steady stream of Iraqi voters walked to polling sites nationwide yesteday to elect their first full-term parliament since Saddam Hussein’s overthrow, ignoring sporadic violence such as a mortar attack in Baghdad.

Police said the mortar round was aimed at the capital’s Green Zone compound, where the Iraqi government is based and senior politicians were voting. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage and voting was not interrupted.There was also an explosion in Ramadi, a city west of the capital where the insurgency is strong, and a mortar round landed near a polling station in Tikrit, Saddam’s hometown.Several blasts shook the turbulent northern city of Mosul.But overall, the election began in a secure, if tense, atmosphere with traffic banned and all work at a halt.Sunni Arabs voted in numbers for the first time, with crowds gathering at polling stations even in rebel strongholds like Ramadi.Most of the once dominant minority boycotted a January 30 election for an interim assembly to draft a new constitution.”I am very happy to vote for the first time because this election will lead to the American occupation forces leaving Ramadi and Iraq,” said 21-year-old voter Jamal Mahmoud.This election, the first held under Iraq’s new constitution, is for a four-year parliament, ushering in a long-term government to tackle the insurgency and other crucial issues.It also marks the formal completion of the US timetable for setting up democratic institutions in postwar Iraq.Some 15 million Iraqis are eligible to vote in the election, which many hope will end decades of suffering, lift living standards, rebuild the oil industry, and lead to a pullout of the US-led troops who toppled Saddam in April 2003.”Ballot boxes are a victory of democracy over dictatorship,” said Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari as he cast his vote.”The real triumph is that people are casting ballots – whoever they choose – and that they’ve chosen voting over bombs.”In the northern, ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk, there were emotional scenes.Hussein Garmiyani, dressed in traditional Kurdish clothes, entered a voting centre and cut his finger with a pin before stamping his ballot paper in blood.”I was a victim of the Anfal campaign.These past years were all years of blood and I signed for freedom with my blood,” he said, referring to Saddam’s campaign against the Kurds in the late 1980s.Garmiyani voted for the main Kurdish alliance.The priority for any new government will be to strengthen Iraqi security forces so that they can quell the bloody two-year-old insurgency without relying on US-led troops.TIGHT SECURITY From the Gulf shores to the mountainous borders of Turkey and Iran, voters will file to more than 6 000 polling stations, dip their index fingers in purple ink to guard against multiple voting and drop their votes into plastic ballot boxes.Security is tight.About 150 000 Iraqi soldiers and police officers are on duty to stop the suicide bombings and shootings which killed around 40 people on polling day on January 30.Nearly 160 000 US soldiers are on hand to support Iraq’s security forces, and although they aim to keep their distance from polling booths, they will intervene if needed.US President George W Bush defended his decision to invade Iraq and reserved the right to wage pre-emptive war, even though he accepted it was based on faulty intelligence, saying he was right to topple Saddam.”We are in Iraq today because our goal has always been more than the removal of a brutal dictator,” he said, hours before Iraqi polling stations opened.Al Qaeda and other Islamist militant groups have vowed to disrupt the poll but have stopped short of threatening, as they did in January, to kill anyone who votes.The run-up to the election has, by Iraq’s bloody standards, been calm.Despite voters having to walk to vote, turnout could be high – perhaps even 70 per cent compared with 58 per cent in January and 64 per cent in October’s constitutional referendum.WHO’S IN THE RACE? However, insecurity kept some polling stations shut in the Sunni Arab province of Anbar, where turnout was just two per cent in January.Of the 207 polling sites in Anbar, whose capital is Ramadi, only 162 opened, Iraq’s Electoral Commission said.There are no reliable opinion polls but the United Iraqi Alliance, a grouping of Shi’ite Islamist parties currently in government, is expected to win the most votes.Its share is expected to fall, however, from the 48 per cent it won in January to perhaps about 40 per cent.The Kurds are predicted to win about 25 per cent of the vote, and will be pushed hard for second place by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, whose broad, largely secular coalition took 14 per cent in January but is expected to make ground.The election is for 275 members of parliament.Most seats are allocated on the basis of the population in Iraq’s 18 provinces but under a complex proportional representation system 40 seats will be set aside for smaller parties.-Nampa-ReutersThere were no immediate reports of casualties or damage and voting was not interrupted.There was also an explosion in Ramadi, a city west of the capital where the insurgency is strong, and a mortar round landed near a polling station in Tikrit, Saddam’s hometown.Several blasts shook the turbulent northern city of Mosul.But overall, the election began in a secure, if tense, atmosphere with traffic banned and all work at a halt.Sunni Arabs voted in numbers for the first time, with crowds gathering at polling stations even in rebel strongholds like Ramadi.Most of the once dominant minority boycotted a January 30 election for an interim assembly to draft a new constitution.”I am very happy to vote for the first time because this election will lead to the American occupation forces leaving Ramadi and Iraq,” said 21-year-old voter Jamal Mahmoud.This election, the first held under Iraq’s new constitution, is for a four-year parliament, ushering in a long-term government to tackle the insurgency and other crucial issues.It also marks the formal completion of the US timetable for setting up democratic institutions in postwar Iraq.Some 15 million Iraqis are eligible to vote in the election, which many hope will end decades of suffering, lift living standards, rebuild the oil industry, and lead to a pullout of the US-led troops who toppled Saddam in April 2003.”Ballot boxes are a victory of democracy over dictatorship,” said Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari as he cast his vote.”The real triumph is that people are casting ballots – whoever they choose – and that they’ve chosen voting over bombs.”In the northern, ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk, there were emotional scenes.Hussein Garmiyani, dressed in traditional Kurdish clothes, entered a voting centre and cut his finger with a pin before stamping his ballot paper in blood.”I was a victim of the Anfal campaign.These past years were all years of blood and I signed for freedom with my blood,” he said, referring to Saddam’s campaign against the Kurds in the late 1980s.Garmiyani voted for the main Kurdish alliance.The priority for any new government will be to strengthen Iraqi security forces so that they can quell the bloody two-year-old insurgency without relying on US-led troops.TIGHT SECURITY From the Gulf shores to the mountainous borders of Turkey and Iran, voters will file to more than 6 000 polling stations, dip their index fingers in purple ink to guard against multiple voting and drop their votes into plastic ballot boxes.Security is tight.About 150 000 Iraqi soldiers and police officers are on duty to stop the suicide bombings and shootings which killed around 40 people on polling day on January 30.Nearly 160 000 US soldiers are on hand to support Iraq’s security forces, and although they aim to keep their distance from polling booths, they will intervene if needed.US President George W Bush defended his decision to invade Iraq and reserved the right to wage pre-emptive war, even though he accepted it was based on faulty intelligence, saying he was right to topple Saddam.”We are in Iraq today because our goal has always be
en more than the removal of a brutal dictator,” he said, hours before Iraqi polling stations opened.Al Qaeda and other Islamist militant groups have vowed to disrupt the poll but have stopped short of threatening, as they did in January, to kill anyone who votes.The run-up to the election has, by Iraq’s bloody standards, been calm.Despite voters having to walk to vote, turnout could be high – perhaps even 70 per cent compared with 58 per cent in January and 64 per cent in October’s constitutional referendum.WHO’S IN THE RACE? However, insecurity kept some polling stations shut in the Sunni Arab province of Anbar, where turnout was just two per cent in January.Of the 207 polling sites in Anbar, whose capital is Ramadi, only 162 opened, Iraq’s Electoral Commission said.There are no reliable opinion polls but the United Iraqi Alliance, a grouping of Shi’ite Islamist parties currently in government, is expected to win the most votes.Its share is expected to fall, however, from the 48 per cent it won in January to perhaps about 40 per cent.The Kurds are predicted to win about 25 per cent of the vote, and will be pushed hard for second place by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, whose broad, largely secular coalition took 14 per cent in January but is expected to make ground.The election is for 275 members of parliament.Most seats are allocated on the basis of the population in Iraq’s 18 provinces but under a complex proportional representation system 40 seats will be set aside for smaller parties.-Nampa-Reuters