Turnout in Iraq's parliamentary election was 62 per cent, higher than in last year's provincial ballot, despite attempts by Sunni Islamist insurgents to disrupt the vote with attacks that killed 39, officials confirmed.
Preliminary results are not expected for another day or two in a poll that Iraqis sickened by violence hope will help bring better governance and stability after years of sectarian slaughter, and as US troops prepare to withdraw.
Prime minister Nuri al-Maliki's State of Law group likely did well in the Shia south while a secular, Sunni-Shia alliance led by former premier Iyad Allawi appeared strong in Sunni areas in the north and west, informal tallies suggested.
The voter participation in excess of 60 per cent was better than many had feared and indicated Iraqis were not deterred by blasts that thudded across the capital on election day. Iraqi officials blamed the explosions on mortar, rockets and roadside bombs, but US military officials said many were caused by "noise bombs" consisting of explosives in plastic bottles.
"Those who love Iraq and its people were eager for the elections to succeed," Mr Maliki said at a dinner for foreign election observers. "Those who love dictatorship and terrorism were opposed to holding what Iraqis saw as a celebration."
In provinces predominantly inhabited by the Sunni minority that ruled Iraq under Saddam Hussein, turnout matched or exceeded the national average, according to Hamdiya al-Husseini of Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC).
That might reduce grounds for Sunnis to complain about their stake in Iraq's nascent democracy seven years after the US-led invasion deprived them of a privileged position under Saddam.
Electoral authorities cautioned politicians not to make premature statements about their performance. Even so, many did.
"The State of Law Coalition list is leading among other lists in Baghdad and other southern provinces," said Ali al-Dabbagh, government spokesman and State of Law candidate.
Lawmaker Haider al-Ebadi, a State of Law candidate and member of Mr Maliki's Dawa party, said initial results suggested the coalition was ahead in 10 provinces.
"But the special voting and voters abroad, this has not been concluded yet and could alter the outcome," he said.
In Sunni heartlands like Anbar province, where US forces faced a bloody insurgency, anger against Mr al-Maliki's Shia-led government is palpable.
"There are no services and no jobs. We live in poverty. What are they waiting for? To see us beg to stay alive?" asked Kamel Farhan (66), who lost two sons in a drive-by shooting by insurgents a few years ago and himself bears bullet scars.
"If there is no change, blood will reach the knee. Killings and violence will return to this province," he declared, sitting in a relative's shop in the provincial capital of Ramadi.
Minority Sunnis alienated by the US-led invasion spurned the first election for an interim assembly in January 2002. They did not boycott the second, held in December the same year for a full parliament, but still felt shut out of political power.
Reuters