Iraqi Elections Go Off Without Hitch

Turn out could exceed 70% rate of 2007 election.

(Persian) Gulf News reported Saturday that Iraqis went to polls on Saturday to vote in the country’s provincial elections, with a massive participation from Sunni Arabs and women. Tribal elders in Al Anbar said that the large Sunni attendance in the elections is also aimed at decreasing in the influence of Al Qaida.

The last election took place amid an al-Qaida-inspired Sunni insurgency and was followed by a surge in sectarian slaughter between once dominant Sunni Arabs and majority Shi’ite Muslims.

That violence has dropped dramatically since 2007with the success of the U. S. “surge strategy” Al Qaida has been badly hurt and dramatically weakened.

Amera Al Baldawi, a member of the Iraqi parliament, told Gulf News that women also turned out in full force at the elections. Al Baldawi said the participation of women in the elections shows “greater political maturity” in Iraq.

Associated Press says Iraqis held their most peaceful election since the fall of Saddam Hussein on Saturday, and voting for provincial councils ended without a single major attack reported anywhere in the country.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is looking to use the election to build his own power base in the provinces before national polls later this year. Sunni Arab groups who boycotted the last provincial polls are hoping to win a share of local power.

There was something of a holiday atmosphere in many parts of the country. In normally traffic-choked Baghdad, children took advantage of a ban on cars to play soccer in the streets.

The jubilant atmosphere was countrywide. “How can we not vote? All of us here have always complained about being oppressed and not having a leader who represented us. Now is our chance,” said Basra voter Abdul Hussein Nuri.

The 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq had patrols on the streets and helicopters in the sky but mostly kept a low profile. A U.S. armored column was seen weaving down a Baghdad street between children and rocks placed in the road as makeshift soccer goals.

Maliki, shadowed by a bodyguard, dipped his finger into an ink box after voting in the walled Green Zone enclave in Baghdad.

He appealed for a high turnout — which would help boost his government’s attempts to use the election as a sign of progress.

“This gives a picture of trust in the government, the elections and the people’s right to take part in this democratic process,” he said.

At a polling station in a girls’ primary school in Kerbala, women in black robes and husbands carrying small children packed into classrooms to cast their ballots, watched over by election monitors perched on tiny children’s chairs.

Five candidates were assassinated in the run-up to the election — three of them just two days before the vote. But overall levels of violence remained low.

“The elections are not boycotted by any major community as has happened in the past,” Andrew Gilmour, deputy head of the U.N. mission in Iraq, told Reuters. “Above all it means these councils should be able to deliver a level of services.”

Just under 15 million of Iraq’s 28 million people are registered to vote for provincial councils that select powerful regional governors. Three Kurdish provinces will vote separately and the election was indefinitely postponed in Kirkuk to avoid a showdown between Kurds and Arabs vying for control there. Last election 70% of Iraqi’s turned out despite violence. That rate or greater is expected this time.

Around 14,400 candidates are competing for 440 council seats after exuberant campaigning. Brightly colored campaign posters cover the blast walls that divide Iraqi neighborhoods.

Mobile phones across the country have beeped in unison this week as parties sent last-minute mass campaign text messages.

There were some glitches. Several people said they failed to find their names on voter registration lists and could not vote. One of them was elderly Fadhel al-Shimary, who had walked two miles to vote in Baghdad’s Palestine Street, stopping every 50 meters to rest in a chair carried by his son.