Iraqis vote in landmark election
BAGHDAD, (AFP)
Iraqis were voting in provincial elections on Saturday in a crucial
test for a nation struggling to emerge from years of sectarian strife
and strengthen its fledgling democracy.
Security for Iraq’s first ballot since 2005 was extremely tight with
Iraqi police and military deployed in strength as part of ramped-up
measures aimed at preventing militant attacks.
About 15 million eligible Iraqis have been called to cast ballots in
14 of 18 provinces at thousands of voting centres that opened at 7 am
(0400 GMT) and will close at 5 pm (1400 GMT).
In the Sunni Arab city of Tikrit, the hometown of executed dictator
Saddam Hussein, four so-called flash bombs exploded near several polling
centres. Police told AFP the bombs had missed their mark and there were
no casualties.
Although security has much improved in Iraq in recent months,
Al-Qaeda and insurgents continue to mount attacks on citizens and
security forces, especially in the mainly Sunni Arab areas of Diyala
province and the northern city of Mosul.
“The people are afraid to come to vote because of the terrorists, but
I came to vote to show to the people that they don’t have to be afraid,”
said Mushtar Jabar, a 32-year-old taxi driver in Baquba, the capital of
Diyala.
Rajaa Alaa, a housewife in Baghdad’s Adhamiya district, said she had
also decided to vote because security was better than before.
“I did not vote the last time because it was too dangerous but this
time it is different,” Alaa told AFP as she left the polling station.
“The whole family went together to vote because we want peace and I
think that this election can bring peace.” Saturday’s election is seen
as a key test of Iraq’s steadily improving stability and political
system as US President Barack Obama looks to redeploy American troops to
Afghanistan.
“Obviously the president will watch the results, and believes that
the provincial elections this weekend mark another significant milestone
in Iraq’s democratic development,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs
told reporters on Friday.
Ahead of the vote, authorities sealed Iraq’s borders, shut down
airports and imposed transport bans and night-time curfews as part of
the massive security lockdown for the election.
State Department acting spokesman Robert Wood said observers from the
US embassy in Baghdad as well as reconstruction teams composed of US
civilians will help monitor the elections.
“Our hopes are that basically the Iraqis have a free, fair,
transparent election, free of violence,” Wood told reporters.
The United Nations and Iraq’s Independent High Election Commission is
organising the elections, with 800 international observers expected to
oversee the balloting.
More than 14,400 candidates are standing for 440 seats in councils,
which appoint the provincial governor and oversee finance and
reconstruction, with a combined budget of 2.5 billion dollars.
Sunni Arabs are expected to turn out in large numbers in a reversal
of the January 2005 parliamentary elections they boycotted, then still
angry about the US-led invasion to depose Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein.
The vote is also being seen as a quasi referendum on the leadership of
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
The Shiite premier has emerged in recent months as
stronger-than-expected leader, promoting a secular national agenda in
response to the sectarian strife that tore Iraq apart in the wake of the
2003 invasion.
Although Maliki is not standing in the election, he has thrown his
support behind a list of candidates that make up the State of Law
Coalition.The vote will not include the three autonomous Kurdish
provinces — Arbil, Dohuk and Sulaimaniyah, all in the north.
Elections have been postponed in the oil-rich Kirkuk province, which
the Kurds want to incorporate despite fierce opposition by the central
government.
|