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By Gideon Long
1 hour, 32 minutes ago
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqis began voting on Thursday for their first four-year parliament since the fall of
Saddam Hussein, with young and old walking to polling sites as a blast echoed across central Baghdad shortly after the start.
It was not clear what caused the explosion, but it sounded like a mortar round aimed toward the Green Zone compound in the capital, where the Iraqi government is based and where senior politicians began voting.
There was also an explosion in Ramadi, a city west of the capital where the insurgency is strong, and a mortar round landed near Tikrit, Saddam's home town. But overall, voting appeared to begin in a secure, if tense, atmosphere.
"Life has got to get better, we can't go on like this," said one young man, the first to vote at a polling station inside a school in Baghdad's Karrada district.
In Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed city north of the capital, around 50 people in traditional Kurdish clothing held flowers as they queued to wait for the polling station to open.
Some 15 million Iraqis are eligible to cast ballots in an election which many hope will end decades of suffering, lift living standards and pave the way for a withdrawal of the U.S.- led forces which toppled Saddam in April 2003.
While the vote doesn't carry the same historic weight as a poll in January --
Iraq's first democratic election in 50 years -- this ballot carries much more significance as it ushers in a four-year parliament and a long-term government.
From the Gulf to the mountainous borders of Turkey and
Iran, voters will file to more than 6,000 polling stations, ink their fingers to guard against multiple voting and drop their votes into plastic ballot boxes.
Security is tight. About 150,000 Iraqi soldiers and police officers will be on the streets to prevent the suicide bombings and shootings which killed around 40 people on polling day at the January 30 election.
Nearly 160,000 U.S. 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.
U.S.
President George W. Bushtook the blame for going to war in Iraq over faulty intelligence but said he was right to topple Saddam and urged Americans to be patient as Iraqis vote.
"We are in Iraq today because our goal has always been more than the removal of a brutal dictator," he said, hours before polling stations opened.
MIDDLE EAST
Al Qaeda and other Islamist militant groups have vowed to disrupt the vote but their statements have been more muted in tone than in January, and the run-up to the election has, by Iraq's blood-soaked standards, been calm.
"There is a quiet confidence that things are going to go well," U.N. envoy to Iraq Ashraf Qazi told Reuters on the eve of a poll which the U.N. and Washington hope will serve as an example to other Middle East states.
Despite voters having to walk to vote for security, turnout is expected to be high -- perhaps 70 to 80 percent compared with 59 percent in January and 64 percent in October's referendum on a new constitution.
There are no reliable opinion polls but observers expect the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), a grouping of Islamist parties within the current coalition government, to win the most votes.
Its share is expected to fall, however, from the 48 percent it won in January to perhaps about 40 percent.
The Kurds, the second biggest bloc in parliament, are predicted to win about 25 percent of the vote, and will be pushed hard for second place by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, whose broad coalition took 14 percent in January but is expected to make ground.
The January ballot was for an interim government charged with overseeing the drafting of a constitution. The charter, approved in a vote in October, paved the way for this week's full-scale parliamentary election.
The big difference from January is that this time, the Sunni Arab minority is largely planning to vote.
Most Sunni Arabs boycotted the last election, partly from fear they would be killed if they did so, and partly from anger with a system they felt would marginalise their community, which was dominant under Saddam for decades.
Many Sunni leaders now acknowledge that as a mistake and are urging their followers to come out in force to eat into the votes of the UIA and Kurds.
The election is for 275 members of parliament. Most of the seats are allocated on the basis of the population in Iraq's 18 provinces but, under a complex system of proportional representation, 40 seats will be set aside for some of the smaller parties in the contest.
Shi'ites, who make up about 60 percent of Iraq's population of 27 million, are likely to dominate the vote in the southern provinces, while Sunnis are strong in the west and central regions. The Kurds have strength in the northeast.
(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy in Baghdad, Aref Mohammed in Kirkuk, Ammar al-Alwani in Ramadi and Baghdad bureau)
1 hour, 32 minutes ago
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqis began voting on Thursday for their first four-year parliament since the fall of
Saddam Hussein, with young and old walking to polling sites as a blast echoed across central Baghdad shortly after the start.
It was not clear what caused the explosion, but it sounded like a mortar round aimed toward the Green Zone compound in the capital, where the Iraqi government is based and where senior politicians began voting.
There was also an explosion in Ramadi, a city west of the capital where the insurgency is strong, and a mortar round landed near Tikrit, Saddam's home town. But overall, voting appeared to begin in a secure, if tense, atmosphere.
"Life has got to get better, we can't go on like this," said one young man, the first to vote at a polling station inside a school in Baghdad's Karrada district.
In Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed city north of the capital, around 50 people in traditional Kurdish clothing held flowers as they queued to wait for the polling station to open.
Some 15 million Iraqis are eligible to cast ballots in an election which many hope will end decades of suffering, lift living standards and pave the way for a withdrawal of the U.S.- led forces which toppled Saddam in April 2003.
While the vote doesn't carry the same historic weight as a poll in January --
Iraq's first democratic election in 50 years -- this ballot carries much more significance as it ushers in a four-year parliament and a long-term government.
From the Gulf to the mountainous borders of Turkey and
Iran, voters will file to more than 6,000 polling stations, ink their fingers to guard against multiple voting and drop their votes into plastic ballot boxes.
Security is tight. About 150,000 Iraqi soldiers and police officers will be on the streets to prevent the suicide bombings and shootings which killed around 40 people on polling day at the January 30 election.
Nearly 160,000 U.S. 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.
U.S.
President George W. Bushtook the blame for going to war in Iraq over faulty intelligence but said he was right to topple Saddam and urged Americans to be patient as Iraqis vote.
"We are in Iraq today because our goal has always been more than the removal of a brutal dictator," he said, hours before polling stations opened.
MIDDLE EAST
Al Qaeda and other Islamist militant groups have vowed to disrupt the vote but their statements have been more muted in tone than in January, and the run-up to the election has, by Iraq's blood-soaked standards, been calm.
"There is a quiet confidence that things are going to go well," U.N. envoy to Iraq Ashraf Qazi told Reuters on the eve of a poll which the U.N. and Washington hope will serve as an example to other Middle East states.
Despite voters having to walk to vote for security, turnout is expected to be high -- perhaps 70 to 80 percent compared with 59 percent in January and 64 percent in October's referendum on a new constitution.
There are no reliable opinion polls but observers expect the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), a grouping of Islamist parties within the current coalition government, to win the most votes.
Its share is expected to fall, however, from the 48 percent it won in January to perhaps about 40 percent.
The Kurds, the second biggest bloc in parliament, are predicted to win about 25 percent of the vote, and will be pushed hard for second place by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, whose broad coalition took 14 percent in January but is expected to make ground.
The January ballot was for an interim government charged with overseeing the drafting of a constitution. The charter, approved in a vote in October, paved the way for this week's full-scale parliamentary election.
The big difference from January is that this time, the Sunni Arab minority is largely planning to vote.
Most Sunni Arabs boycotted the last election, partly from fear they would be killed if they did so, and partly from anger with a system they felt would marginalise their community, which was dominant under Saddam for decades.
Many Sunni leaders now acknowledge that as a mistake and are urging their followers to come out in force to eat into the votes of the UIA and Kurds.
The election is for 275 members of parliament. Most of the seats are allocated on the basis of the population in Iraq's 18 provinces but, under a complex system of proportional representation, 40 seats will be set aside for some of the smaller parties in the contest.
Shi'ites, who make up about 60 percent of Iraq's population of 27 million, are likely to dominate the vote in the southern provinces, while Sunnis are strong in the west and central regions. The Kurds have strength in the northeast.
(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy in Baghdad, Aref Mohammed in Kirkuk, Ammar al-Alwani in Ramadi and Baghdad bureau)
Also significant is the female vote.
What does Iraq need to do? Set up 3 provinces? Continue as is?
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