BAGHDAD, January 31 (Reuters) - Iraqis voted behind barbed wire and rings of police today in an election that tested the war-battered country's fragile security gains and may ease sectarian resentment still fuelling violence.
Iraq's first election since 2005 will pick local councils in 14 of its 18 provinces and show whether Iraqi forces are capable of maintaining peace as U.S. troops begin to pull back, almost six years after the invasion to unseat Saddam Hussein.
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| A resident votes in Baghdad . Reuters |
Three mortar shells landed harmlessly, close to voting centres in Saddam's home town Tikrit, and two civilians were shot and wounded in a quarrel with soldiers in Baghdad's Sadr City slum. But otherwise there were few incidents by noon and car bans put in place to counter bomb attacks were being lifted.
The last election took place amid an al Qaeda-inspired Sunni insurgency and failed to halt sectarian slaughter that sharply worsened between Iraq's once dominant Sunni Arabs and its majority Shi'ite Muslims. That violence has ebbed since 2007.
A relatively peaceful and credible election will show Iraq has moved on from solving disputes with bullets, and will set the stage for a parliamentary vote late in the year, in which Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will try to renew his mandate.
Each part of Iraq features its own dynamics in today’s provincial vote. In the south, Maliki is challenging dominant Shi'ite rivals. In the west, tribal sheikhs who fought al Qaeda are taking on Sunni religious parties. In the north, Sunni Arabs who boycotted the last vote are looking to win a share of power.
Three Kurdish provinces are to vote separately and the election in oil-rich, disputed Kirkuk has been put off because no one could agree on the rules. |
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