Millions of Kurds go to polls in election
More than 2.5 million Iraqi Kurds go to the polls in presidential and
parliamentary elections on Saturday as the region grapples with a land
dispute with Baghdad and tensions over oil exports.
Incumbent regional president Massud Barzani is widely tipped to be
re-elected while his Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Iraqi
President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) are
expected to sweep the parliamentary poll.
More than 2.5 million Kurds are eligible to vote.
The two main former rebel factions, which have dominated the region's
politics for decades, have presented a joint list, including many new
candidates. But they face several challengers seeking to break their
stranglehold.Saturday's main vote - more than 100,000 Kurdish members of
Iraq's armed forces voted on Thursday, along with police, prisoners and
the sick - is being held six months after the rest of Iraq held
provincial elections.Polls open at 8:00 am (0500 GMT) and close at 6:00
pm (1500 GMT) throughout the Kurdish region of northern Iraq.Final
results are not expected for several days, however, as ballots must be
collected in the regional capital Arbil before being transported to
Baghdad for the count.
Tensions have heightened in the run-up to the vote between Barzani
and the central government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki over Kurdish
claims to 16 disputed areas, including oil-rich Kirkuk, and parts of
three historically Kurdish-populated provinces - Diyala, Nineveh and
Salaheddin.During a visit to Washington on Thursday, Maliki acknowledged
that these tensions were among "the most dangerous issues that have been
a concern for all the Iraqi government."But he said he expected to
resolve the standoff. "I am confident that we will be able to resolve
all these issues not only with the Kurdistan region but also with other
provinces," Maliki said.During the US-led invasion of 2003, Kurdish
peshmerga rebels who had fought the regime of ousted dictator Saddam
Hussein occupied many of the disputed areas.
-AFP
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