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Sunnis join big Iraq election turnout

Posted on: Thursday, 15 December 2005, 16:04 CST

By Alastair Macdonald and Luke Baker

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Minority Sunni Arabs swelled the turnout in Iraq's largely peaceful election on Thursday, reversing a previous poll boycott that only increased their loss of power after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

With nationalist insurgents supporting the poll and even vowing to protect Sunni Arab voters, there was only sporadic violence, well below normal Iraqi levels.

Turnout in 10 hours of voting was at least 10 million, or 67 percent, the head of Iraq's Electoral Commission told Reuters, much higher than the 58 percent who voted in the previous election on January 30, when most Sunni Arabs boycotted.

In Saddam Hussein's home province more than 80 percent of voters turned out, a local official said. Polling stations in parts of Iraq were kept open an extra hour to let those waiting in line cast ballots.

In Sunni Falluja turnout was 70 percent, officials said, and in Kurdish regions and the Shi'ite south it was also high.

The mostly tranquil vote, which will raise U.S. hopes that a stable government can pave the way for American troops to eventually pull out of Iraq, was in sharp contrast to January's election for an interim assembly, when 40 people died.

President George W. Bush, who faces wide U.S. public disapproval of his Iraq strategy and is eager to show progress, hailed the election as "a major milestone in the march to democracy."

A Reuters straw poll of more than 500 voters across Iraq showed the dominant Shi'ite Islamist block had retained a strong following but was being challenged by a secular list headed by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

The United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) is the senior partner in the current ruling coalition with the Kurds, but the poll showed Allawi making up ground from his 14 percent showing in the January poll and cutting into the Islamist bloc's 48 percent.

Allawi, who heads a secular slate with candidates from across Iraq's sectarian divides has sought to split the Islamist Shi'ite vote. The Kurdish coalition remained dominant in its northeastern strongholds, according to the poll.

COMPLAINTS

There were complaints about voting irregularities across Iraq and allegations flew about attempts to influence the vote or skew the ethnic balance in some northern cities, but overall the process went smoothly, the Electoral Commission said.

"This is a day of freedom for us," said Selima Khalif, an elderly woman voting in the poor southern province of Maysan.

"We are so happy. The most important thing we need is security. We want our children to get a better life."

All polls closed shortly after 6 p.m. (1500 GMT) and counting began immediately. As electoral workers opened each ballot box they said a quick prayer. Definitive results are not expected for two weeks or more, the Electoral Commission said.

United Nations envoy Ashraf Qazi was pleased: "All in all it was a good day and a historic day," he told Reuters. The U.S. ambassador in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, was also impressed. "The turnout has been dramatically higher," he told Reuters.

While voting went well generally, two people were killed in mortar attacks on polling stations in Mosul and Tal Afar in the north and three, including a U.S. Marine, were wounded when a mortar round landed in Baghdad's Green Zone as polls opened.

The interior minister said a suicide car bomber was shot dead in Baghdad and police said they arrested another east of the capital. The U.S. military separately announced that a Marine had been killed near Ramadi on Wednesday.

Eight other people, including two Iraqi soldiers, were killed in other violence. Among those, four insurgents died when a bomb they were planting exploded on the main road in Isshaaqi, 90 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

But a nationwide three-day traffic ban, and the presence of 200,000 Iraqi soldiers and police backed up by U.S. troops, succeeded in protecting the 6,000 polling stations.

Washington hopes that if Sunnis are drawn into the political process, the revolt will be undermined, letting Iraqis gradually take over security without provoking a civil war.

"Ballot boxes are a victory of democracy over dictatorship," said Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari after voting, his finger purple with the dye that prevents double voting and is a symbol of Iraqi democracy. "They've chosen voting over bombs."

SUNNIS SHOW STRENGTH

In Falluja, west of Baghdad, scene of the biggest battle between U.S. forces and rebels a year ago, a shortage of ballot papers and of vehicles to ferry infirm voters held up voting.

Bitter at the power exercised this year by the interim parliament of Shi'ite Islamists and Kurds, Sunni militants said they would defend polling stations in cities like Ramadi against al Qaeda and other groups who vowed to disrupt the vote.

"Sunni Arabs made a big mistake in boycotting the last election. It left us out of ... writing the constitution," said Talal Ali, 25, as he voted for the first time in Kirkuk.

He backed one of the main Sunni lists which wants to amend the federalist constitution, agreed two months ago, that Sunnis say could hand Kirkuk's oil riches to independence-minded Kurds and give Shi'ites control over the southern oilfields.

Once a coalition government is formed, which could take weeks, the first task of the new parliament is to address Sunni grievances over the constitution. Another challenge is building up Iraqi security forces so foreign troops can go home.

While those battles lie ahead, there was hope of a better future among voters on Thursday.

In Baghdad, Shi'ite Hadi Mishaal, wounded in the 1991 Gulf War and forced by the traffic ban to hobble 2 km (over a mile) on a crutch to vote with his wife, said: "I hope we can have a government that will help me and give me my rights."

In Mosul, Khazal Mohammed Said, a 47-year-old sheep trader, said he hoped the vote would lay the foundations for an end to occupation. "There is no Iraqi Muslim who wants a foreigner to occupy this country," he said.

In the southern Shi'ite city of Samawa, Allawi supporter Jasim Faisal, 34, declared: "We want freedom ... to drink alcohol, dance and go to nightclubs."

Underlying a vote in which Iraqis can choose among 231 lists, is also widespread sectarian fear and mistrust. Healing the rifts was the campaign theme of Allawi, appointed prime minister last year under U.S. occupation.

Many believe he could lead a broad coalition government, a development Washington might endorse after losing patience with Jaafari, whose term has seen the rise of violent pro-government militias and warm ties with America's enemies in Shi'ite Iran.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed, Gideon Long, Alastair Macdonald, Omar al-Ibadi, Waleed Ibrahim, Mariam Karouny, Hiba Moussa, Mussab al-Khairalla and Paul Tait in Baghdad, Aref Mohammed and Alister Bull in Kirkuk, Peter Graff in Amara, Fadil al-Badrani in Falluja, Sami al-Jumaili in Kerbala, Twana Osman and Cyrille Cartier in Sulaimaniya, Shamal Aqrawi in Arbil, Abdel-Razzak Hameed in Basra, Ghasawn al- Jibouri in Tikrit, Ammar al-Alwani in Ramadi, Hamed Fadhil in Samawa, Khaled Farhan in Najaf and Deepa Babington in Mosul)

Source: REUTERS

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