IRAQ: The mood of foreboding finally lifted from Baghdad yesterday as Iraqis turned out to vote in their thousands.
For weeks Baghdad has had the feel of a city under siege, with daily car bombings, assassinations and threats driving election workers and candidates undercover.
But yesterday even the intermittent sound of explosions and gunfire could not stop Iraqis from casting their ballots.
Some were nervous, others excited.
Most said they were voting to reject the terrorism that has come to dominate their lives and which few have been able to protest against.
"The Iraqi people have been silent for too long. I want to show the terrorists that I am not afraid. This is my country, and they must now stop destroying it," said Mr Hussein Hadi, a 33-year-old minibus driver.
Across Baghdad, residents made their way to polling stations on foot, an unprecedented security operation having locked down the city.
Traffic was banned and streets sealed off with barbed wire, with dozens of Iraqi policemen manning each polling station.
American forces on the ground stayed largely in the background.
At times, the scene was reminiscent of the days after the war, when residents emerged from the bombing to eagerly discuss their future.
On Abu Nawass street, one of Baghdad's main thoroughfares, US helicopters flew overhead, Iraqi policemen at checkpoints confiscated cigarette lighters and pens, and families promenaded down the centre of the street on their way to vote.
"Don't worry, don't worry," said one Iraqi man, smiling, as the sound of an explosion ricocheted off surrounding buildings.
"This is our day, a special day for all Iraqis to savour freedom," said the man. "But now I must go and vote."
At polling station 6504, in a middle-class Shia district, the crowds began arriving shortly after 7 a.m.
The building, a temporarily converted school, was surrounded by three cordons of barbed wire and a large hand-drawn poster for the main Shia list, an indication of who many would be voting for.
Iraqi policemen, most of whom had spent the night at the station, frisked voters as they approached, directing women to a nearby tent.
By 10 a.m., a queue had formed at the entrance to the polling station, men and women forming separate lines.
Inside, following directions on a blackboard, voters registered their names in one of four rooms set aside for voting in the two-storey concrete school.
They then took two A3-size voting papers, for national and district elections, to a voting booth constructed from two cardboard boxes, before placing them into ballot boxes.
Mr Sayada Abid, a 65-year-old female voter, burst into tears as she recalled how Saddam Hussein's regime had executed her son for praying outside a mosque.
"God willing we will now have a proper government running this country, and Saddam Hussein will rot in hell," she said, dipping her finger in a pot of indelible ink to prove she had voted.
Outside the room, polling centre manager and headmaster of the school, Mr Talib Ibrahim, fielded questions from worried voters.
"I insist on my right to vote," said one man who could not find his name on a voter list.
Last week Mr Ibrahim had received a letter containing a death threat
But like many yesterday, he was undeterred.
"This is the first step in one thousand miles towards freedom and stability," he said.
"We want to send a message that in spite of the violence, in spite of the three wars Saddam put us through, we are an advanced people."
By 5 p.m., Mr Ibrahim said, almost 75 per cent of registered voters had cast their ballots.
At another polling station in Ameriya, a predominantly Sunni part of Baghdad, polling officials estimated that 50 per cent had cast their votes.
Officials said that figures had been kept down by a brief exchange of gunfire between policemen and insurgents, a reminder of the intensity of anti-election activity in Sunni areas which had threatened to keep turn-out down to a minimum.
In some parts of the city, like the Baathist-dominated Aadamiya district, voters did stay away.
"We're still surprised by the number of people who have turned up today," said the polling station manager in Ameriya, Mr Raed Jamal.
"It is clear to me that Sunnis as well as Shias want to have a part in this election. We all want to shape the future of our country," said Mr Jamal.
He said he had been expecting four or five people to show up. Instead there were 8,500.
As darkness fell and gunfire echoed around the city, polling wound down and Mr Jamal and his officials settled down to begin counting the votes.
To the sound of fighting outside he shrugged, and said: "The terrorists are too late, this city has spoken."