Iraqis Cast Votes for a New Assembly

Iraqis walked through mostly silent streets this morning to begin voting in their country’s most competitive election in decades, a U.S.-backed exercise that will produce the first full-term government here since the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

The mood was tense and solemn as voters braved scattered insurgent attacks to venture on foot to polling centers -- some alone, some with their families. Turnout across the country was brisk at midmorning after a slow start.

Iraqi soldiers and special police commandos guarded the centers, mostly schools, and frisked everyone entering. U.S. soldiers in armored vehicles patrolled the roads. Virtually all civilian cars had been banned from the streets under strict security rules.

A bomb exploded outside a school in Mosul during early voting there, killing a guard, hospital officials said. Explosions were also heard in Baghdad, Tikrit and Ramadi during the morning. Police said one blast apparently was caused by a mortar round that landed near the Green Zone, Baghdad’s fortified government compound.

The voting for a new parliament started hours after rumors swept the capital that insurgents had poisoned the water supply. Warnings against drinking tap water were broadcast through the night over mosque loudspeakers, until the Health Ministry issued a televised statement saying the rumors were false.

That had little apparent effect on the voting. As the 6,280 polling centers opened at 7 a.m., people lined up to get paper ballots, checked off their preferred slate of candidates and dropped the sheets into boxes. They dipped index fingers into purple ink to show they had voted.

“I came to practice my right as a citizen,” Fathi Jaralla, a 33-year-old lawyer, said after voting in Mosul. “I will not give up that right even if all the bombs in the world fall around my head.”

Campaigning concluded Wednesday without major bloodshed. Officials said two civilians and two policemen were killed on the eve of voting by insurgents’ roadside bombs.

There were also signs Wednesday of the sectarian tensions that threaten Iraq’s future: Shiite Muslims protested what they called a televised slur on their religious leaders, and rumors spread of forged ballots smuggled from Iran.

But the relative lull in insurgent attacks appeared to reflect an intent by Sunnis to vote in large numbers for the first time since their minority sect lost its political dominance with the ouster of Hussein. Sunnis form the backbone of the insurgency against the U.S. military and the Shiite-led interim government.

Today’s vote will give Iraq its first four-year legislature since the American-led invasion in 2003, putting into practice the national constitution approved in an Oct. 15 referendum. This is the third nationwide vote in less than a year, the final stage of a process to install a democracy and restore full sovereignty here.

The Bush administration, under political pressure at home to stabilize Iraq and start pulling out its 160,000 troops, is counting on the election to produce a more inclusive leadership and unify an increasingly fractious nation. A big turnout by Sunnis, who largely shunned the January election, could help divert much of the insurgency into peaceful politics, U.S. officials say.

The 275-seat Council of Representatives elected today will replace the interim National Assembly chosen Jan. 30. It will choose a president and prime minister and decide how much power and wealth to cede to federal regions -- a potentially explosive dispute that has set Sunnis in the resource-poor center and west of Iraq against ethnic Kurds and Shiites in the oil-rich north and south.

In a televised speech Wednesday, President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, urged Iraq’s 15 million voters to make election day “like a national wedding day, a day of national unity and of triumph over terrorism and forces hostile to democracy.”

Voters in hospitals, barracks and prisons cast the first ballots Monday. On Tuesday, up to 2 million Iraqis living abroad began three days of voting.

American and Iraqi officials said they were expecting a higher participation rate than the 63% turnout for the October referendum. January’s vote drew a 58% turnout.

The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq said the ballots, which vary in each of the 18 provinces, listed more than 7,000 candidates representing 19 multiparty coalitions and 307 political parties or independent candidacies.

The contest has set the religious parties of Iraq’s ascendant Shiite majority against an array of challengers.

The United Iraqi Alliance, grouping 18 religiously conservative Shiite parties, has led the interim government in a coalition with Kurdish parties, the second-largest bloc in the current parliament. The Shiite alliance is expected to win the greatest number of legislative seats again, but not as many as the 140 it captured in January, in part because of discontent over the government’s performance.

Sunni parties, gathered mainly in three electoral blocs, are expected to make a strong showing. More than 1,000 Sunni clerics have issued a religious decree calling for their congregations to vote.

The electoral system divides 230 of the 275 parliamentary seats by province, and Sunni-dominated regions could get as many as one-fifth of the directly elected seats. The remaining 45 seats will be apportioned according to nationwide vote totals for political party slates.

Others who oppose the Shiite religious parties are backing former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

Allawi led Iraq’s U.S.-sponsored interim administration from June 2004 until about two months after January’s vote. His Iraqi National List has backing among secular voters, including some Sunnis, but it would have to draw Kurdish parties away from the Shiite alliance to assemble a majority in the council.

By law, the electoral bloc winning the most legislative seats today will get the first chance to form a government and try to obtain the required two-thirds backing in the new council. Because no bloc is expected to get enough seats by itself, weeks of protracted bargaining among the top finishers are expected.

American officials say the success of the vote will depend not only on whether it is free of major violence and widely seen as fair, but also on whether the postelection bargaining produces a government that most Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis accept as legitimate.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who was deeply involved in negotiations to write the constitution, said Tuesday that he hoped “a good, strong government” would be formed quickly. “I would be happiest ... if Iraqis do this on their own,” he told reporters. “But Iraq’s success is important to us, and if my help is needed, I am available.”

The sectarian divide was on display Wednesday, albeit peacefully.

Thousands of supporters of Shiite Muslim religious parties seized on talk-show remarks by Fadel Rubaie, a Sunni Arab exile, to stage spirited marches in Baghdad, Najaf, Hillah, Basra and Karbala in defense of their clerical hierarchy, which they said had been maligned.

Rubaie told an Al Jazeera satellite TV talk show that the clergy had “favored the entry of American troops into Iraq” and should stop “conspiring against the resistance.” He touched a nerve by criticizing Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani by name, calling him a “ghost” who issues edicts from seclusion.

The most powerful Shiite party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, swiftly denounced what it called an “attack on our sacred symbols” by Rubaie and Al Jazeera.

Among those who marched in protest were hundreds of policemen in Najaf, a Shiite holy city. The demonstrations amounted to a rallying of the Shiite religious electoral base, after the formal close of campaigning, around its most powerful figure -- even though the ayatollah had stopped short of a direct endorsement of its candidates.

Shiite militants in Nasiriya set fire to a building housing Allawi’s campaign offices.

In another episode with sectarian overtones, unnamed police officials told reporters late Tuesday that a tanker truck stuffed with forged ballots had been seized after crossing the border from Iran. On Wednesday, Iraq’s Interior Ministry, border guards and electoral commission said the report was false.

The voting today follows a turbulent campaign in which at least four candidates and dozens of campaign workers were slain. But even so, the politicking was far more open than the run-up to the January election, when public appearances by candidates were rare and most Sunnis stayed on the sidelines.

The January vote was Iraq’s first multiparty contest since the one held by the British-backed constitutional monarchy in the late 1950s -- a period followed by decades of dictatorship.

Insurgents trying to thwart the return to democracy killed 44 people in numerous attacks on election day in January, but the militants were held in check during the voting in October.

This time the insurgents issued mixed messages.

On Monday, five Islamic militant groups, including Al Qaeda in Iraq, denounced the election as a “crusaders’ project” in violation of Islamic law. But unlike insurgent communiques before the October and January voting, the statement did not threaten disruption of the balloting. On Wednesday, however, Al Qaeda in Iraq said it had begun attacks aimed at spoiling U.S. and Iraqi “celebrations” of democracy.

Iraqi police were deployed to guard entrances to polling places while Iraqi troops provided a close cordon of security. American forces formed a loose outer ring, with rapid-response units ready to deal with any emergency. About 225,000 Iraqi soldiers were stationed across Iraq for today’s election, up from 200,000 in October and 138,000 in January, U.S. officials said.

In Al Anbar province, U.S. and Iraqi forces have swept insurgents from a string of settlements, allowing the opening of 22 more polling centers than in October, said Saad Arrawi, the electoral commission representative in Ramadi. But continued fighting was preventing 53 of the province’s 207 polling stations from operating, he said.

Times staff writers Borzou Daragahi, Saif Rasheed, Raheem Salman, Caesar Ahmed, Suhail Ahmad and Shamil Aziz in Baghdad and Louise Roug in Fallouja, Iraq, and special correspondent Asmaa Waguih in Basra contributed to this report.

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Key players

Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish leaders in Iraq urged voters to participate in elections today.

Abdelaziz Hakim, born 1950: Cleric and influential politician heads the main Shiite coalition.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, born 1930: Most powerful Shiite cleric has stopped short of endorsing Hakim’s alliance.

Iyad Allawi, born 1945: Secular Shiite leads a coalition of Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish moderates.

President Jalal Talabani, born 1933: He is leader of Iraq’s Kurdish minority, which is likely to resume its ruling coalition with Shiites.

Tariq Hashimi, age unknown: Sunni Arab politician intends to press for changes in the constitution.

Source: Associated Press

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Iraq chooses its parliament

Iraqis vote today in their first parliamentary election since the country’s constitution was ratified in October. The new legislature, called the Council of Representatives, will form a government to run the country for a four-year term.

Dec. 15: Voters elect permanent government.

Dec. 31: New government is to assume office.

Council of Representatives: 275 members, 25% of which must be women

Council will elect a president by a two-thirds majority.

Council chooses two vice presidents

President and vice presidents will name the prime minister, probably the leader of the largest bloc.

Prime minister will form a Cabinet to be approved by the council.

Sources: Iraqi Constitution, Associated Press