Scattered attacks fail to disrupt Iraq vote

Reuters ^ | 12/15/05 | Gideon Long and Michael Georgy

[Pikamax]

Scattered attacks fail to disrupt Iraq vote By Gideon Long and Michael Georgy 20 minutes ago

Iraqis turned out in large numbers on Thursday for a largely peaceful election that sharply contrasted with a bloody polling day last January.

Only scattered insurgent violence broke the general calm, unlike the January 30 vote for an interim assembly, when about 40 people died, many of them in nine quick-fire suicide bombings.

A guard was killed and a policeman wounded by a bomb at a polling station in Mosul on Thursday, one of several blasts as polls opened at 7 a.m. (0400 GMT) in the northern city, where Sunni Arabs and Kurds are at daggers-drawn over power and territory.

At the same time a mortar blast set off sirens in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone government and embassy compound. Two civilians and a U.S. Marine were treated for minor injuries, the U.S. embassy said.

Mortars also broke the nationwide calm in Samarra and nearby Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town.

An explosion rocked Ramadi, another bastion of Sunni Arab revolt.

But in the most remarkable turnaround from the January 30 poll, people lined up to vote in the western city, determined to have a say in the new, fully empowered, four-year parliament. They had boycotted the first, U.S.-backed election in January.

"I'm delighted to be voting for the first time because this election will lead to the American occupation forces leaving Ramadi and Iraq," said 21-year-old Jamal Mahmoud, reflecting a view common among voters across the sectarian divide.

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

That truce, combined with sealed borders, a three-day ban on traffic and a mass presence of police and troops, with 160,000 Americans keeping discreetly in the background, made for a vote that could scarcely be more different from January.

BALLOTS NOT BOMBS

"Ballot boxes are a victory of democracy over dictatorship," said Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari as he cast his vote. "The real triumph is that people are casting ballots -- whoever they choose -- and that they've chosen voting over bombs."

Hadi Mishaal, who was wounded in fighting for Saddam against Americans in 1991, and who hobbled 2 km (over a mile) on a crutch to vote in Baghdad with his wife, said:

"I hope we can have a government that will help me and give me my rights."

U.S. President George W. Bush hailed the expected turnout among Sunnis as a sign that nationalist insurgents were being drawn into a political dialogue that would marginalise diehard rebels -- Baathist followers of Saddam and al Qaeda Islamists.

On the eve of the poll, just over 1,000 days after U.S. troops invaded to oust Saddam, Bush admitted he had gone to war on faulty intelligence. But he said he was still right to invade and urged Americans to be patient in helping Iraqis build a democracy.

"We are in Iraq today because our goal has always been more than the removal of a brutal dictator," he said.

With opinion polls showing a majority of U.S. voters disapprove of his handling of the Iraq war, Bush is anxious to portray Iraq's election as a success for his strategy.

Underlying the vote, in which Iraqis will choose from 231 electoral lists, is the potential for sectarian violence.

In the holy city of Najaf, stronghold of the ruling Shi'ite Islamist Alliance's list No. 555, 40-year-old Abdullah Abdulzahra said: "I'll vote for 555 because they'll kill all Baathists."

In the turbulent Sunni Arab Aadhamiya district of Baghdad, unemployed shoe salesman Ismail Dulaimi, 25, said:

"This time it will be different for the Sunnis. We are voting. Now we have a government that only gives jobs to Shi'ites."

In the northern, ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk, Hussein Garmiyani, dressed in traditional Kurdish clothes, smeared his own blood on the ballot, saying he was a victim of Saddam:

"These past years were all years of blood and I signed for freedom with my blood," he said.

ALLAWI

Among Sunni Arabs, some Kurds and less religious Shi'ites, Iyad Allawi, Washington's choice as first post-Saddam prime minister in a transitional government, appeared to be picking up votes after a ubiquitous and slick media advertising campaign.

The secular Shi'ite's strongman image and vision of economic revival after a year of disappointment were going down well across the sectarian divide, strengthening his hope of returning to lead a coalition.

Joking with reporters after casting his ballot in the Green Zone, the former doctor's style was in marked contrast to the somber Jaafari: "We hope to see a formation of a strong government that can ... represent the main communities and be a government of national salvation," Allawi said.

Some 15 million Iraqis can vote at over 6,000 poll places.

"There is a quiet confidence that things are going to go well," U.N. envoy to Iraq Ashraf Qazi told Reuters on the eve of a poll which the U.N. and Washington hope will serve as an example to other Middle East states moving toward democracy.

Despite voters having to walk to vote, turnout could be high -- perhaps even 70 percent compared with 58 percent in January and 64 percent in October's constitutional referendum.

There are no reliable opinion polls but observers expect the Shi'ite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) share of the vote to fall, from the 48 percent it won in January to perhaps about 40 percent. The Kurds are predicted to win about 25 percent of the vote, and may be pushed hard for second place by Allawi.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed, Luke Baker, Alastair Macdonald, Omar al-Ibadi, Mariam Karouny, Hiba Moussa and Mussab al-Khairalla in Baghdad, Aref Mohammed in Kirkuk, Ammar al- Alwani in Ramadi, Khaled Farhan in Najaf and Deepa Babington in Mosul)

[Caipirabob]

"It's going to be a long day for evil tyrants. Maybe I'll call in sick..."

[msnimje]

Among Sunni Arabs, some Kurds and less religious Shi'ites, Iyad Allawi, Washington's choice as first post-Saddam prime minister in a transitional government...

The press keeps saying Allawi was "america's choice" but I distinctly remember him being elected or installed by the temporary Iraqi government over the US government's "favorite" candidate.

Does this ring a bell with anyone else?

[Congressman Billybob]

This story is so extraordinary, and so favorable, that even the anti-American bias of Reuters could not turn this into a negative story. It's sort of like reading election results in the NY Times when, through gritted teeth, they reported George Bush's election as President, twice.

When even our journalistic enemies are forced to file a story this favorable, the reality on the ground must be well-nigh excellent.

Congressman Billybob

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