Counting of ballots under way as Iraqi provincial elections pass off peacefully

THE COUNTING of ballots got under way yesterday in Iraq’s second provincial polls since the US toppled the Baathist regime in 2003. Seventeen million voters in 14 of the country’s 18 provinces chose from a field of 14,460 candidates for 440 provincial council seats.

The councils nominate governors who run provincial admini- strations and oversee reconstruction projects worth a total of $2.4 billion. Polls in the three northern Kurdish autonomous provinces and oil-rich Tamim, disputed by Kurds, Arabs and Turkomen, were postponed.

Voting proceeded without a spike in violence and no casualties were reported. Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki called the elections “a victory” and said, as he cast his ballot in the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, that a high turnout would demonstrate “the Iraqi people’s trust in their government and in elections”.

However, the turnout of 51 per cent was less than the 60-70 per cent predicted, disappointing both the government and the US. Only about 40 per cent of voters participated in Sunni-majority areas and in Baghdad, which now has a Shia majority because of sectarian violence between 2006 and 2007.

There were several reasons for the low turnout. A countrywide curfew on all but voters discouraged people from venturing far from home, while a ban on the use of private vehicles made it difficult for voters to reach the polls.

Women were intimidated by menfolk into abstaining or were frightened off by heavy security at polling stations, where they were searched to ensure they were not carrying bombs beneath voluminous cloaks.

Thousands of Sunnis found their names were not on registers and complained that the Shia-led government was seeking to deny them the vote.

Some Shias did not vote because the election coincided with a pilgrimage to the holy city of Najaf. There is also widespread disillusionment with politicians who do not respond to voters’ demands for jobs, electricity, clean water and services.

Exit surveys show that Maliki’s Dawa (Mission) party and its allies have made gains in the south at the expense of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, a former ally.

Most Iraqis strongly oppose the council’s demand for the creation of a nine-province Shia region comparable to the Kurdish autonomous region.

Sunni “Awakening Councils”, which helped defeat al-Qaeda, seem to have done well in the west and north, while the secular Iraqi List of former premier Iyad Allawi and the Citizens’ Coalition of leftists and nationalists have had limited success.