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Puck
The Texan
Joined: 05 Jan 2004
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 Sun Jan 30, 2005 10:42 am Iraqi Polls Close, High Voter Turn Out |
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| Quote: |
Polls Close in Historic Iraqi Elections
Sunday, January 30, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq � The polls in Iraq have closed, ending the country's first open elections in more than 50 years and setting a course for what U.S. officials hope will be a long democratic future.
All around the country, Iraqis defied threats of violence and cast their votes. An initial estimate of turnout from the Independent Electoral Commission (search) indicated that 72 percent of eligible Iraqi voters had turned out to cast their ballots.
But the day was not without bloodshed. Eight homicide bombings and mortar strikes at polling stations killed at least 36 people. A Web site statement purportedly from insurgency leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group claimed responsibility for the election-day attacks.
"What we're seeing here is the voice of freedom," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in the first response to the election from the Bush administration.
"Every indication is that the election in Iraq is going better than expected," Rice said on ABC's "This Week." "No, it's not a perfect election," Rice conceded, but she called it a positive development no one had foreseen three years ago when Saddam Hussein was still the dictator of Iraq.
Iraqi politicians also cast the elections as a huge success.
Casting his vote, Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi (search) called it "the first time the Iraqis will determine their destiny."
"We have defeated the terrorists today," Ahmad Chalabi, a secular Shiite who is running for the National Assembly on the United Iraqi Alliance list, told FOX News. "The winds of freedom are sweeping across Iraq."
After a slow start, men and women in flowing black abayas -- often holding babies -- formed long lines, although there were pockets of Iraq where the streets and polling stations were deserted. Iraqis prohibited from using private cars walked streets crowded in a few places nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with voters, hitched rides on military buses and trucks, and some even carried the elderly in their arms.
"This is democracy," said Karfia Abbasi, holding up a thumb stained with purple ink to prove she had voted.
Turnout was brisk in Shiite Muslim and mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhoods. Even in the small town of Askan in the so-called "triangle of death" south of Baghdad, 20 people waited in line at each of several polling centers. More walked toward the polls.
Rumors of impending violence were rife. When an unexplained boom sounded near one Baghdad voting station, some women put their hands to their mouths and whispered prayers. Others continued walking calmly to the voting stations. Several shouted in unison: "We have no fear."
"Am I scared? Of course I'm not scared. This is my country," said 50-year-old Fathiya Mohammed, wearing a head-to-toe abaya.
At one polling place in Baghdad, soldiers and voters joined hands in a dance, and in Baqouba, voters jumped and clapped to celebrate the historic day. At another, an Iraqi policeman in a black ski mask tucked his assault rifle under one arm and took the hand of an elderly blind woman, guiding her to the polls.
In Ramadi, U.S. troops coaxed voters with loudspeakers, preaching the importance of every ballot.
The election is a major test of President Bush's goal of promoting democracy in the Middle East. If successful, it also could hasten the day when the United States brings home its 150,000 troops. More than 1,400 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, including a U.S. Marine killed in combat Sunday in Iraq's restive Anbar province. No details were released on the latest death.
Security was tight. About 300,000 Iraqi and American troops were on the streets and on standby to protect voters, who entered polling stations under loops of razor wire and the watchful eye of rooftop sharpshooters.
Private cars were mostly banned from the streets, forcing suicide bombers to strap explosives to their bodies and carry out attacks on foot.
The governor of the mostly Sunni province of Salaheddin, Hamad Hmoud Shagti, went on the radio to lobby for a higher turnout. "This is a chance for you as Iraqis to assure your and your children's future," he said.
Shiite Muslims, estimated at 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million people, were expected to turn out in large numbers, encouraged by clerics who hope their community will gain power after generations of oppression by the Sunni minority.
A ticket endorsed by the country's leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is expected to fare best among the 111 candidate lists. However, no faction is expected to win an outright majority, meaning possibly weeks of political deal-making before a new prime minister is chosen.
The elections will also give Kurds a chance to gain more influence in Iraq after long years of marginalization under the Baath Party that ruled the country for 34 years.
"This proves that we are now free," said Akar Azad, 19, who came to the polls with his wife Serwin Suker and sister Bigat.
Iraqis in 14 nations also held the last of three days of overseas balloting on Sunday, with officials in Australia extending polling station hours because of an earlier riot and bomb scare. More than 70 of the 281,000 registered overseas voters had cast a ballot, according to Adel al-Lami of the Independent Electoral Commission. He offered no overall figures.
Speaking in Nigeria, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Sunday's balloting "the first step" toward democracy. "It's a beginning, not an end," he said.
Final results of the election will not be known for seven to 10 days, but a preliminary tally could come as early as late Sunday.
One U.S.-funded election observer said early reports pointed to smoother-than-expected voting, despite the violence.
"We're hearing there has been fairly robust turnout in certain areas," said Sam Patten, a member of the Baghdad team of the International Republican Institute.
The chief U.N. adviser to Iraq's election commission, Carlos Valenzuela, also said turnout seemed to be good in most places.
"These attacks have not stopped the operations," Valenzuela said.
Asked if reports of better-than-expected turnout in areas where Sunni and Shiite Muslims live together indicated that a Sunni cleric boycott effort had failed, one of the main groups pushing the boycott seemed to soften its stance.
"The association's call for a boycott of the election was not a fatwa [religious edict], but only a statement," said Association of Muslim Scholars spokesman Omar Ragheb. "It was never a question of something religiously prohibited or permitted."
In the most deadly attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a polling station in western Baghdad, killing himself, three policemen and a civilian, officials said. Witness Faleh Hussein said the bomber approached a line of voters and detonated an explosives belt.
In a second suicide attack at a polling station, a bomber blew up himself, one policeman and two Iraqi soldiers. In a third suicide attack at a school in western Baghdad, three people and the bomber died, police said.
And in a fourth, at another school in eastern Baghdad, a suicide bomber killed himself and at least three others. Another five people died in other suicide attacks.
Also, a suicide bomber blew himself up near the home of Iraq's justice minister in western Baghdad in an apparent assassination attempt. The minister was not home but the attack killed one person, an Interior Ministry official said.
The rest were killed in shootings and explosions in several communities north of Baghdad.
Overall, eight of the 36 people killed were suicide bombers.
In addition, three people were killed when mortars landed near a polling station in Sadr City, the heart of Baghdad's Shiite Muslim community. Two others died when a mortar round hit a home in Amel, and a policeman died in a mortar attack on a polling station in Khan al-Mahawil, south of Baghdad.
In Mosul, the province's deputy escaped an assassination attempt, but his bodyguard was killed.
FOX News' Dana Lewis, Geraldo Rivera, Jane Roh, Shepard Smith, David Lee Miller, Megan Dowd and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Jan. 29: Iraqi immigrants Nadia Khoshaba hugs Mona Oshana, left, after voting in Irvine, Calif.
Jan. 30: Women wait to enter a polling station in Najaf, Iraq
Thousands of Iraqis walk to a polling station in Al Alamara.
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Hitchhiker
Rear Admiral
Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 3514
Location: Ontario, Canada
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| Sun Jan 30, 2005 12:25 pm |
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This is good. I'm glad that the threat of violence (and its occurrence) hasn't acted as a deterrent. 
Estimated 72% o.0 Wow!
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MJ
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 17 Jan 2005
Posts: 266
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| Sun Jan 30, 2005 1:54 pm |
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Reading 60% here. 
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Theresa
Lux Mihi Deus
Joined: 17 Jun 2001
Posts: 27256
Location: United States of America
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| Sun Jan 30, 2005 2:13 pm |
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Reading:
| Quote: | | Shiite Muslims, estimated at 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million people, were expected to vote in large numbers, encouraged by clerics who hope their community will gain power after generations of oppression by the Sunni minority. |
| Quote: | Just before the close, one official with the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq put turnout at 72 percent, but he later said that did not include the largely Sunni provinces of Anbar and Nineveh, and the commission said the figure was based on ``very rough, word-of-mouth estimates.''
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here.
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
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| Sun Jan 30, 2005 5:13 pm |
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GREAT news. This is impressive--more than in America. These Iraqis are heroes who braved the dangers of threatened death.
And it's SO nice to see how happy they are!
Last edited by Republican_Man on Sun Jan 30, 2005 7:01 pm; edited 1 time in total
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
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| Sun Jan 30, 2005 5:20 pm |
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| FOX News wrote: | Iraqi-Americans Cast Votes With Joy
Sunday, January 30, 2005
SOUTHGATE, Mich. � Iraqi-Americans (search) filled buses, churches and mosques Sunday as they cast absentee ballots in Iraq�s first legitimate election in more than 50 years.
Expatriates had three days to vote, starting Friday and ending at 5 p.m. local time Sunday at each polling station, several hours after the polls closed in Iraq.
"This day I was born again � I call this day 'born-again day,'" a 48-year-old voter told FOX News after casting his ballot at a polling station in Southgate, Mich. (search) � one of five cities where Iraqis can vote in the United States. It was the first time he had ever had the chance to vote in an Iraqi election.
The mood was joyful at the suburban Detroit polling site Sunday as Iraqi voters filled out their ballots and expressed relief that their family members had been able to vote in their native country. There are about 150,000 Iraqis in the United States, with as many as 80,000 in Michigan alone.
Amid dancing and smiles, one election worker banged a tambourine and cheered as voters dropped their paper ballots in boxes.
"I feel like I'm going to cry. This is my first time ever voting," said Zeinab Alkhafaji, 20, of Dearborn.
She cast her vote among friends and family, all of whom left Iraq in 1994. They said they were especially encouraged after talking to family back in Iraq on Sunday morning and learning that relatives there had voted safely.
Many Iraqis in the United States had to drive hundreds of miles to reach polling sites outside five major U.S. cities: Nashville, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington. Nearly 26,000 Iraqi expatriates in the United States registered to vote during the Jan. 17-25 sign-up period. To be eligible, voters had to have turned 18 by Dec. 31 and be born in Iraq, be present or former citizens of Iraq or have an Iraqi father.
Registrations in the Detroit area totaled 9,714, while smaller numbers of people registered in the other four cities. Those who registered had to return to the same site between Friday and Sunday in order to cast their vote. The locations were chosen by the U.S. arm of Iraq's Out-of-Country-Voting program.
Most of those who did sign up were thrilled at the chance to participate. The latest available figures showed that about two-thirds of those who did sign up had cast ballots in the first two days.
Estimates suggest that as many as 1 million Iraqi expatriates across the globe may be eligible to take part in the election. About 900 registration and polling stations were established in approximately 150 locations across the 14 host countries.
There are 275 seats are up for grabs in the Iraqi assembly that will draft Iraq's new constitution, and about 6,000 candidates are vying for those positions.
"We recognize that the Iraqi voting population is spread out, and we never fooled ourselves into thinking we'd reach 100 percent of the population," said Jeremy Copeland of the International Organization for Migration, which organized the vote in the United States and 13 other countries.
For other Iraqis, it wasn't time or place that kept them from registering, Copeland said. It was not having documentation, such as an Iraqi passport or a driver's license with a photo, to prove their eligibility or fearing their relatives in Iraq could face reprisal, even though all of the information collected was kept confidential.
Still, Copeland said officials were heartened by stories of intrepid Iraqis, such as a busload of more than 100 who drove from Washington state to Los Angeles last weekend to register.
Ali Almoumineen, a lawyer who left Iraq in 1992 and settled in Nashville, Tenn., is one of those who registered to vote. He remembers Iraq's elections before Saddam Hussein fell.
"The ballot before had Saddam Hussein � yes or no � and if you put no, the bodyguard took you to the jail," said Almoumineen, who now teaches Arabic to U.S. troops.
Edina Lekovic, a spokeswoman for the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles, said most Iraqi-Americans didn't believe they would significantly alter the outcome, but felt the symbolic importance of casting a ballot.
"The sense is more often about having the right to vote and the access to vote and being thrilled by the opportunity," Lekovic said.
FOX News' Eric Shawn and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source |
| FOX News/AP wrote: | Iraqis Express Pride & Hope
Sunday, January 30, 2005
ASKAN, Iraq � Some couldn't read, but knew their party's identification number on the ballot. Others couldn't see, but were led to the polls by police. Across wide swathes of Iraq, especially in the southern Shiite (search) and northern Kurdish areas, Iraqis went to the polls Sunday, expressing fierce determination and pride, together with hope that the election will improve their hard lives.
"I don't have a job. I hope the new government will give me a job," said one voter, Rashi Ayash, 50, a former Iraqi lieutenant colonel.
From the early hours of Sunday morning, Iraqis stood in long lines that wrapped around street corners, defying militant threats of violence to cast their votes for the 275-member National Assembly. Dozens were killed as militants fired mortars, and in one town, a suicide bomber mingled with voters waiting outside a polling booth.
But people continued to vote undeterred.
"Am I scared? Of course I'm not scared. This is my country," said Fathiya Mohammed, 50.
Security was tight across the country. Iraqi police provided much of the frontline protection, checking women's' handbags and even babies wrapped in blankets, while female Iraqi guards patted down women voters.
Voters heading into a polling station in a boys school in Baghdad's middle-class Karada (search) district were searched twice, first at an outer perimeter about 40 yards from the school. Then they removed their jackets and the batteries from their cellular phones, which have been used in the past to detonate bombs. Finally they walked past coils of barbed wire under the eyes of sharpshooters on nearby rooftops.
Authorities banned cars from voting centers as part of security measures meant to stop car bombings, a rule that left some people struggling to reach the ballot boxes.
In the northern Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah (search), a man carried 80-year-old Mohammed Karim Khader over his shoulders and trekked the last few steps to the polling station.
At a polling place in eastern Baghdad, an Iraqi policeman in a black ski mask tucked his assault rifle under one arm and held the hand of an elderly blind woman to guide her to the polls.
Fathiya Mohammed shrugged off the incessant threats of violence and donned her head-to-toe abaya before heading to her neighborhood polling station in the small town of Askan south of Baghdad.
"This is democracy," the elderly woman said proudly, holding up a thumb stained with the purple ink used to mark those who had voted. "This is the first day I feel freedom."
Turnout was brisk in mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhoods like Askan, and in heavily Shiite areas in Baghdad and Basra. Polling stations in heavily Sunni cities such as Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra were virtually deserted in the morning. By midday hundreds of people were voting in Samarra and the volatile city of Mosul in the north, though there were still big pockets with little turnout.
In the mostly Sunni province of Salaheddin, Gov. Hamad Hmoud Shagti took to the radio to urge voting. "This is a chance for you as Iraqis to assure your and your children's future," he said.
The prospect of impending violence was never far away.
When an unexplained boom sounded near one Baghdad voting station, some women put their hands to their mouths and whispered prayers. Others continued walking calmly to the voting stations. Several shouted in unison: "We have no fear."
Electoral commission official Mijm Towirish said the fact that voters came to the polls showed Iraqis "broke a barrier of fear."
Voters all across the country said they hoped the election would bring them security, jobs and a better future.
"I came here to vote for our goal, which is freedom," said Abu Ahmed, a 55-year-old Shiite voter in Baqouba north of Baghdad.
Source |
| FOX News/AP wrote: | Zarqawi Group Takes Violence Credit
Zarqawi Group Takes Violence Credit
CAIRO, Egypt � A Web site statement purportedly from insurgency leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's (search) group claimed responsibility Sunday for at least four attacks on polling centers across Iraq.
The group, Al Qaeda in Iraq (search), said its "lions" attacked at least four voting centers in Baghdad, including one in the upscale Mansour neighborhood.
The statement's authenticity could not immediately be verified. It was posted on a Web site noted for carrying militant messages and it was purportedly issued in the name of the group's media coordinator, Abu Maysarah al-Iraqi.
The group claimed to have killed "police, national guards and Americans," without giving specifics. It also claimed responsibility for an attack on the Green Zone (search), the fortified Baghdad enclave holding the U.S. Embassy and Iraqi government buildings, which it called the "Black Zone."
The group also said it was active in the cities of Mosul, Samarra and Baqouba as well as the Anbar province.
Source |
| FOX News wrote: | Bush: World Hears Freedom's Voice
Sunday, January 30, 2005
WASHINGTON � While the Bush administration had tried to drive down expectations for turnout in Iraq's first legitimate election in decades, by all accounts Iraqis pleasantly surprised just about everyone as voters headed to the polls in droves on Sunday.
Calling the election a resounding success, President Bush said Iraqis have shown their commitment to democracy.
"Today, the people of Iraq have spoken to the world and the world has heard the voice of freedom from the center of the Middle East," he said, adding that Iraqis firmly rejected the anti-democratic ideology of the terrorists and refused to be intimidated by thugs and assassins.
"Men and women have taken righful control of their country's destiny and they have chosen freedom and peace," Bush said.
He also thanked Americans for being "patient and resolute" even during difficult times.
Making the round of morning news shows on the first weekend after her confirmation as secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice (search) said turnout was better than expected.
"This election is, of course, a first step, and what it really says is that the Iraqi people are not prepared to be fearful and intimidated and kept from their right to exercise their voice," Rice said.
She added that Iraqis showed that equal representation is not merely a western value.
"Their bravery and their willingness to go out is really a vote of confidence for Iraq, but it's also a vote of confidence for these values that are universal values," she said.
Voter turnout was expected to be around 8 million eligible voters or 60 percent, according to the Independent Electoral Commission (search). That comes despite considerable morning violence in which nine homicide bombings and mortar strikes at polling stations killed at least 44 people, including the bombers.
Voting in Sunni areas was expected to be lower than predicted, suggesting that the minority Muslims who led the country under Saddam Hussein may not have the representation they would like in the new National Assembly.
Bush stayed in Washington, D.C., this weekend, instead of going to the presidential retreat at Camp David so he could monitor the Iraqi elections. He attended services at St. John's Episcopal Church, across the park from the White House after being briefed on the vote by his new National Security Director Stephen Hadley (search). Churchgoers mentioned the Iraq elections in their weekly prayers.
Bush spent the week urging Iraqis to ignore the threats from terrorist groups threatening violence and to head to the polls. He predicted what he called a "grand moment" in Iraqi history, but he also said in his Saturday radio address that the insurgents would stop at nothing to disrupt the election.
"Yet in the face of this intimidation, the Iraqi people are standing firm ... They know what democracy will mean for their country: a future of peace, stability, prosperity and justice for themselves and for their children," Bush said.
Asked all week how many voters it would take to make the election credible, the president repeatedly said the fact the vote was being held at all made it a success. A FOX News poll taken this week showed that among those surveyed, 50 percent said that 50 percent or better turnout would make Iraq's election legitimate. Another 28 percent said the election is legitimate if under 50 percent of Iraqis vote.
Rice told FOX News Sunday that she talked with Bush about the vote on Sunday morning, and he called it "a great day for the Iraqi people." Several other observers agreed.
"This is a triumphant day," said FOX News contributor Juan Williams, who called the earlier estimated turnout of 72 percent "spectacular."
"The fact that they're having a free election after many, many years is extremely significant in itself," said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala. "I think this is the beginning of something big and that is freedom in Iraq."
"The willingness of the Iraqi people to vote under the specter of violence speaks to the power of democracy and the passion for freedom," Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said in a written statement.
"Iraqi people were in chaos ... I think this is a newborn day for them," one Iraqi-American who voted in Michigan, told FOX News.
While the results are not expected for at least a week, Bush will almost certainly cite the Iraqi vote in this week's State of the Union address. Aides said he planned his first full rehearsal of the speech to Congress on Sunday in the White House auditorium.
Bush has said that whoever wins Sunday's vote for a 275-seat National Assembly and 19 regional legislatures, he expects the winner will want U.S. troops in Iraq to stay. British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the coalition will start to turn over security duties to Iraqi troops in some of the country's less violent provinces. A British Hercules C-130 transport plane crashed outside Baghdad on Sunday.
U.S. officials say they expect to keep 120,000 troops in Iraq through the end of next year, down from 150,000 currently there. Rice warned that Sunday's vote won't end the violence.
"I suspect that the insurgents will try to demonstrate that, despite today's vote, they are still a very viable force. And they are, because they're very, very brutal intimidators, and I don't expect that to go away. But what we're doing is we're working with the Iraqis to train their own security forces," she said.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., also tempered joy for the occasion during a Sunday morning news show.
"It is hard to say that something is legitimate when whole portions of the country can't vote and doesn't vote," Kerry said.
After the show, he told reporters that the election is also a chance for the United States to begin mending bonds internationally and start considering reducing its presence in Iraq.
"If we do a better job of training; if the training is accelerated and other countries come to the table in the effort to provide and help provide long term security, yes we can begin to reduce American troops. "But those pre-conditions and changing the life of the Iraqis on a day-to-day basis has not happened," Kerry said.
Added Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., who has called the situation in Iraq "George W. Bush's Vietnam": "While the elections are a step forward, they are not a cure for the growing violence and resentment of the perception of an American occupation ... I continue to believe that the best way to demonstrate to the Iraqi people that we have no long-term designs on their country is for the administration to withdraw some troops now and to begin to negotiate a phase-down of our long-term military presence."
While no one expects U.S. troops to pull out anytime soon, the outcome of Sunday's election could affect strategy planning at the White House and Pentagon. So far, more than 1,400 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq and the United States is spending more than $1 billion a week. The president's advisers indicated last week that Bush is going to seek an $80 billion emergency supplemental bill from Congress to pay for continuing costs there.
"There's more distance to travel on the road to democracy and yet Iraqis have proven they are equal to the challenge," Bush said.
Sunday's vote does not install a permanent government in Iraq. The assembly will create a constitution, which the public will be asked to support. Not until December will permanent regular elections be held.
FOX News' Wendell Goler and Sharon Kehnemui Liss and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source |
| FOX News wrote: | Millions Cast Ballots Despite Violence
Sunday, January 30, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq � For the first time in more than 50 years, Iraqis cast ballots in democratic elections Sunday and took the first steps to declaring how they wanted Iraq to be governed.
As estimated 8 million people � 60 percent of eligible voters � braved violence and calls for a boycott to vote in Iraq (search). A string of homicide bombings and mortar volleys killed at least 44 people, including nine attackers.
U.S. and Iraqi forces sought to clamp down on violence by imposing a strict curfew and seriously restricting traffic around polling places. About 300,000 Iraqi and American troops were on the streets and on standby to protect voters.
Women in black abayas whispered prayers at the sound of a nearby explosion as they waited to vote at one Baghdad (search) polling station. But the mood for many was upbeat: Civilians and policemen danced with joy at one of the five polling stations where photographers were allowed, and some streets were packed with voters walking shoulder-to-shoulder to vote. The elderly made their way, hobbling on canes or riding wheelchairs; one elderly woman was pushed along on a wooden cart, another man carried a disabled 80-year-old on his back.
"This is democracy," said Karfia Abbasi, holding up a thumb stained with purple ink to prove she had voted.
"The world is hearing the voice of freedom from the center of the Middle East," President Bush told reporters at the White House four hours after the polls closed. He did not take questions.
Condoleezza Rice (search), Bush's new secretary of state, made the rounds of Sunday news talk shows to further argue the president's case.
"Iraqis have taken a huge step forward. And they have hard work ahead of them, but this is a great day for the Iraqi people," Rice told "FOX News Sunday" with Chris Wallace.
Iraqi politicians also cast the elections as a huge success.
Casting his vote, Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi (search) called it "the first time the Iraqis will determine their destiny."
"We have defeated the terrorists today," Ahmad Chalabi (search), a secular Shiite who is running for the National Assembly on the United Iraqi Alliance list, told FOX News. "The winds of freedom are sweeping across Iraq."
The election will create a 275-member National Assembly and 18 provincial legislatures. The assembly will draw up the country's permanent constitution and will select a president and two deputy presidents, who in turn will name a new prime minister and Cabinet to serve for 11 months until new elections are held.
With Arabs across the Middle East watching the vote, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak telephoned Allawi to congratulate him on the election, saying he hoped it would "open the way for the restoration of calm and stability." The president of the United Arab Emirates also phoned his good wishes.
Looking for Trends Among Religious Groups
Officials said turnout among the 14 million eligible voters appeared higher than the 57 percent that had been predicted, although it would be some time before any turnout figure was confirmed. No preliminary results were expected before Monday at the earliest, and final results will not be known for seven to 10 days, the election commission said.
Polls were largely deserted all day in many cities of the Sunni Triangle (search) north and west of the capital, particularly Fallujah, Ramadi and Beiji. In Baghdad's mainly Sunni Arab area of Azamiyah, the neighborhood's four polling centers did not open at all, residents said.
A low Sunni turnout could undermine the new government that will emerge from the vote and worsen tensions among the country's ethnic, religious and cultural groups.
Shiite Muslims, estimated at 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million people, were expected to vote in large numbers, encouraged by clerics who hope their community will gain power after generations of oppression by the Sunni minority.
"I feel elated, exhilarated in fact, because I think this is a very important step forward," said Adnan Pachachi (search), a prominent Iraqi Sunni politician who had called for the vote to be postponed because of violence.
Pachachi said in an interview with FOX News that he didn't talk about whether Sunnis or Shiites would end up in control. "The division should be between those who want a secularist democracy in Iraq and those who want a religious government," he said.
After a slow start, voting appeared heavy in Shiite and mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad but low in some heavily Sunni areas. Sunnis in mixed areas may have voted in greater numbers there because pressure to boycott was less intense � and chances of retaliation lower because they would not stand out at the polls. There are few ways by sight to distinguish Sunni and Shiite Arabs.
Hadi Nassif Jassem was pushed by his son on a wheeled office chair to a polling station in Baghdad's Saadoun neighborhood.
"The vote today was great. It will raise high the name of the Arab nation and Iraq. We haven't lived such a democracy for 50 years," said the 54-year-old former truck driver, who said he became crippled because surgery he needed could not be done in Iraq.
A ticket endorsed by the country's leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is expected to fare best among the 111 candidate lists. However, no faction is expected to win an outright majority, meaning possibly weeks of political deal-making before a new prime minister is chosen.
The elections will also give Kurds a chance to gain more influence in Iraq after long years of marginalization under the Baath Party that ruled the country for 34 years.
"This proves that we are now free," said Akar Azad, 19, who came to the polls with his wife and sister. In addition to the assembly and provincial votes, Kurds are also choosing a regional parliament for their zone of northern Iraq.
Another Deadly Day in Iraq
In a reminder of the dangers that persist in Iraq, a British C-130 military transport plane crashed north of Baghdad about a half hour after polls closed at 5 p.m. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has confirmed that there were British deaths in the crash, but did not say how many. There was no word on the cause or how many people were on board, but variations of the C-130 in the British Air Force can carry up to 128 infantrymen.
Guerrilla attacks began within two hours of the balloting's start Sunday morning. All but one of the day's nine suicide attacks came in Baghdad, mostly against polling sites, using bombers on foot with explosives strapped to their bodies since private cars were banned from the streets.
In one of the deadliest attacks of the day, a bomber got onto a minibus carrying voters to the polls near Hillah, south of Baghdad, and detonated his explosives, killing himself and at least four other people, the Polish military said.
A deadly mortar volleys hit Baghdad's Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City and others struck voters at several sites in Balad, and Kirkuk in the north and Mahawil south of the capital. Across the country, at least 35 people and nine suicide bombers were killed.
The group Al Qaeda in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for election-day attacks in a Web statement, although the claim could not be verified.
A few hours after polls closed at 5 p.m., thunderous explosions reverberated through central Baghdad, though their cause was unknown.
When an unexplained boom sounded near one Baghdad voting station, some women put their hands to their mouths and whispered prayers. Others continued walking calmly to the voting stations. Several shouted in unison: "We have no fear."
"Am I scared? Of course I'm not scared. This is my country," said 50-year-old Fathiya Mohammed, wearing a head-to-toe abaya cloak.
Richard Perle, a former Pentagon adviser now with the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank, told FOX News it was impossible in the days leading up to the election to determine what the threats of violence would do. But the level of participation, he said, should be seen as the "death knell for the insurgency."
"With Iraqis perhaps for the first time beginning to believe they are in control of their own destiny, the environment in which the insurgents are operating is going to be much less hospitable," Perle said.
In Ramadi, U.S. troops tried to coax voters with loudspeakers, preaching the importance of every ballot. The governor of the mostly Sunni province of Salaheddin, Hamad Hmoud Shagti, went on the radio to lobby for a higher turnout. "This is a chance for you as Iraqis to assure your and your children's future," he said.
Several hundred people turned out to vote in eastern districts of the heavily Sunni city of Mosul � Iraq's third largest city and a center for insurgent violence in past months. But in western parts of Mosul, clashes erupted between guerrillas and Iraqi soldiers.
Just before the close, one official with the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq put turnout at 72 percent, but he later said that did not include the largely Sunni provinces of Anbar and Nineveh, and the commission said the figure was based on "very rough, word-of-mouth estimates."
Iraqis in 14 nations also held the last of three days of overseas balloting on Sunday.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Sunday's balloting "the first step" toward democracy. "It's a beginning, not an end," he said.
FOX News' Dana Lewis, Geraldo Rivera, Mike Emanuel, Shepard Smith, David Lee Miller, Megan Dowd, J. Jennings Moss and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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Puck
The Texan
Joined: 05 Jan 2004
Posts: 5596
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| Sun Jan 30, 2005 7:33 pm |
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I just like the pictures. Seeing all those Iraqis going to vote and being so happy, makes me feel alot better about the war.
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
Location: Classified
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| Sun Jan 30, 2005 7:36 pm |
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| JanewayIsHott wrote: | | I just like the pictures. Seeing all those Iraqis going to vote and being so happy, makes me feel alot better about the war. |
It makes me feel better, yes, but not much better, because I feel good about it. But yes, it is refreshing and nice.
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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lionhead
Rear Admiral
Joined: 26 May 2004
Posts: 4020
Location: The Delta Quadrant (or not...)
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| Mon Jan 31, 2005 7:18 am |
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Never expected so many Iraqi's too vote. Thats a good thing. Perhaps now the americans can start thinking about leaving.
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Never explain comedy or satire or the ironic comment. Those who get it, get it. Those who don't, never will. -Michael Moore
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MJ
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 17 Jan 2005
Posts: 266
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| Mon Jan 31, 2005 11:29 am |
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| JanewayIsHott wrote: | | I just like the pictures. Seeing all those Iraqis going to vote and being so happy, makes me feel alot better about the war. |
Actually kev, I don't see that many Iraqis laughing on those pictures, they look mostly grumpy to me.
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
Location: Classified
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| Mon Jan 31, 2005 7:47 pm |
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| lionhead wrote: | | Never expected so many Iraqi's too vote. Thats a good thing. Perhaps now the americans can start thinking about leaving. |
No, we can't. We need to stay there until it completely stabalizes. We have an obligation, and should not and cannot leave until it is done.
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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MJ
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 17 Jan 2005
Posts: 266
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| Tue Feb 01, 2005 12:51 pm |
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Just like the US did in vietnam!? 
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Leo Wyatt
Sweetest Angel
Joined: 25 Feb 2004
Posts: 19045
Location: Investigating A Crime Scene. What did Quark do this time?
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| Tue Feb 01, 2005 12:53 pm |
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Vietnam does not have nothing to do with this.
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IntrepidIsMe
Pimp Handed
Joined: 14 Jun 2002
Posts: 13057
Location: New York
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| Tue Feb 01, 2005 3:45 pm |
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Two negatives make a positive?
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"Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being."
-Wuthering Heights
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
Location: Classified
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| Tue Feb 01, 2005 7:03 pm |
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| MJ wrote: | | Just like the US did in vietnam!? |
That's the POINT. We can NOT leave like in Vietnam, and this is NOT like Vietnam.
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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