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Iraqi voting centre targeted as polls open in general election Iraqis go to the polls amid violence at voting centres
(about 2 hours later)
Two mortars landed near voting centres west of Baghdad on Wednesday morning as Iraqis went to the polls in the country's first general election since US troops withdrew, an official said. Voting is under way in Iraq in the first national elections since US forces left two years ago, despite a virtual lockdown in most towns and cities that officials expect will limit turnout at polling stations.
The mortars did not cause any casualties, according to Shaker al-Essawi, a senior municipal official in the area just west of Baghdad where the attacks took place. Iraqis have shown little enthusiasm for the ballot to elect a new parliament, prime minister, president and speaker, which is being held amid rising violence in many provinces and after an underwhelming campaign in which candidates offered few solutions or fresh approaches.
Elsewhere in Iraq, militants set off nearly a dozen sound grenades in the ethnically mixed town of Tuz Khurmatu, north of Baghdad, while a senior police chief in Kirkuk province survived an assassination attempt carried out with twin bombings targeting his convoy, officials said. As polls opened on Wednesday morning, two roadside bombs exploded in Dibis, near Kirkuk in northern Iraq, killing two women walking to a polling station and wounding five soldiers. Earlier, two mortars landed near voting centres west of Baghdad but no casualties were reported.
Polls opened at 7am local time and will close at 6pm in what is the first nationwide ballot since the American withdrawal in 2011. Iraq's 22 million registered voters are electing a 328-seat parliament. The Iraqi prime minister, Nour al-Maliki, is contesting the leadership for a third time and his conservative Shia State of Law list is likely to emerge with most seats in the new 328-seat parliament. Maliki, though, is unlikely to win anything like the majority he needs to avoid a long and destabilising period of horse-trading with other parties in order to establish a coalition.
In central Baghdad, police and army personnel manned checkpoints roughly 500 metres apart, while pickup trucks with machine-guns perched on top roamed the streets. Much of the city looked deserted without the normal traffic congestion that Baghdad is notorious for. Most stores were closed. Unlike the past two elections, security has overshadowed enduring concerns about basic governance and services, which remain sub-standard more than 10 years after the US-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.
Voters are being subjected to multiple searches before they are allowed inside polling centres. Streets leading to the centres were blocked by police trucks and barbed wire. Maliki has attempted to position himself as a unifying force – the only leader strong enough to rally Iraq's security forces against a looming threat from Sunni insurgents in Anbar province that are attempting to topple him and usurp the country's malfunctioning democracy.
"I decided to go and vote early while it's safe. Crowds attract attacks," said Azhar Mohammed as she and her husband approached a polling station in Baghdad's mainly Shia Karadah district. The 37-year-old woman in mourning black had just lost a brother – a soldier killed last week in the northern city of Mosul. However, many Iraqis believe that the revitalised insurgency is slowly gaining an upper hand and that security forces and Maliki are powerless to stop them encircling Baghdad.
"There has been a big failure in the way the country has been run and I think it is time to elect new people," she said. The country's Sunnis, whose power base was shattered by the downfall of Saddam, remain largely disenfranchised and viewed with suspicion by Shia-dominated security forces. Sunni residents of Baghdad contacted ahead of the election said they doubted the result of the election would offer them more of a voice in the affairs of state.
Not far from where Mohammed was, Essam Shukr broke into tears as he remembered a son killed in a suicide bombing in Karadah last month. "I hope this election takes us to the shores of safety," said the 72-year-old Shukr. Voting centres in much of Anbar were closed on Wednesday. Militants detonated suicide bombs in at least three parts of Baghdad by midday and attacked police stations and a hospital in the north of the country.
"We want a better life for our sons and grandchildren who cannot even go to playing areas or amusement parks because of the bad security situation. We want a better life for all Iraqis." In many parts of the capital, checkpoints were set up every 500 metres. The few cars that took to largely deserted streets were moving at a snail's pace past locals walking to polling booths in schools and government buildings.
A Shia party led by Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister of eight years, is expected to win the most seats in Wednesday's election but is unlikely to win a majority. As security has worsened in Iraq in the past two years, already rampant corruption has worsened. Much of the political class is accused of using public funds to enrich themselves and their backers at the expense of the state.
Maliki will have to cobble together a coalition if he is to retain his job for a third four-year term, a tough task given the harsh criticism he has been under from his one-time Shia, Sunni Arab and Kurdish allies. Polling stations were due to close at 6pm, after which a curfew will be imposed. The ballot-counting process wil start on Wednesday night and preliminary results were expected to be released as early as Thursday.