Millions of Iraqis vote in relative peace
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-16 08:31

Many Shiite politicians have little interest in concessions to Sunnis on their key demands, including a greater share of power and allowing a role for Saddam loyalists in public life.

As a result, negotiations to create a new government — including a prime minister — could drag on for weeks just as they did following January's election, when many Sunnis stayed away from the polls because of threats of violence or to honor boycott calls. Another prolonged political struggle might worsen sectarian tensions.

Still, Iraqi leaders expressed relief that the election had passed relatively smoothly.

Iraqi residents show their stained fingers after voting during Iraq's historical parliamentary elections in the Iraqi city of Diwaniya, 180km (112 miles) south of Baghdad, December 15, 2005. [Reuters]

"The time has come to build Iraq with our own hands and to use the great wealth that God has granted to Iraq to rebuild Iraq so that we can turn our poverty into wealth and our misery into happiness," Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said.

U.S. officials saw the lack of violence as an encouraging sign.

"We should expect the insurgency not to just go away, but to gradually reduce," said Gen. George Casey, top U.S. commander in Iraq, speaking via video to a town hall-style meeting of Defense Department workers at the Pentagon.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld added, "This election constitutes a defeat for the enemies of the Iraqi people, the enemies of the legitimate Iraqi government. It constitutes a defeat to the people who have been doing the beheadings and conducting the suicide raids."

As polls opened, a mortar shell exploded near Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, slightly wounding two civilians and a U.S. Marine, the U.S. military said.

In northern Iraq, a civilian was killed when a mortar shell hit near a polling station in Tal Afar, and a grenade killed a school guard near a voting site in Mosul.

Turnout was most striking in Sunni Arab areas, including the Baghdad district of Azamiyah. Last January, few voters turned out in Azamiyah, where Saddam took refuge when Baghdad fell.

Tareg Moustafa Abdullah, 70, said he regretted boycotting the January election, which allowed Shiites and Kurds to win control. "We ended up with people who do not know God," he said.

An Iraqi woman waits to vote at a polling station in the Iraqi town of Fallujah Thursday Dec. 15, 2005.[AP]

In Fallujah, the former Sunni insurgent bastion seized by U.S. forces in November 2004, 11 of the city's 35 polling stations did not receive ballot boxes, while some sites ran out of ballots in the morning, said Mayor Dhari al-Arsan.

He said some voters "thought it was done purposely," but he attributed the lack of ballot boxes to the large turnout. "Today we are witnessing the biggest democratic process," al-Arsan said.

Election commission spokesman Farid Ayar said officials opened only 167 of the planned 207 election centers in Anbar province because of security. Anbar includes Ramadi and Fallujah.

Turnout was also reported high across the Shiite south, including Basra, where the director of one polling center, Amjad Mahdi, estimated more than 70 percent of the 5,000 registered voters at his facility had cast ballots.

With a nationwide vehicle ban in effect, most Iraqis walked to the polls. Streets were generally empty of cars, except for police, ambulances and a few others with permits.

Ethnic tensions arose in Kirkuk, a northern city claimed by Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen. Norjan Adel, a poll watcher for the Turkoman Front, complained of irregularities by the Kurds, including multiple voting.