BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraqis lined up amid tight security today to vote in a historic parliamentary election the U.S. hopes will lay the groundwork for American troops to withdraw.
A mortar landed near the heavily fortified Green Zone just minutes after polls opened. No injuries were reported, but the blast underscored concerns of violence despite a promise by Sunni insurgent groups not to attack the polls.
Dozens of Iraqis waiting to cast ballots at Baghdad’s city hall went through three separate checkpoints as police searched each person entering the downtown site.
“The first voting process to choose a parliament with a four-year term in Iraq has started,” senior election official Abdul-Husein Hendawi said.
He said some polling stations in Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold 70 miles west of Baghdad, had not yet opened for security reasons.
A coalition of Shiite religious parties, which dominate the current government, was expected to win the largest number of seats – but not enough to form a new administration without alliances with rival groups.
Outside Baghdad city hall, Abbasiya Ahmad, 80, said she had voted for the governing Shiite United Iraqi Alliance.
“We hope that they will bring us security and safety. Also they are clerics, and clerics do not steal our money. We want people who protect our money,” she said.
The Bush administration hopes the new parliament will include more Sunni Arabs to help establish a government that can lure other Sunnis away from the insurgency. Such a development would make it possible for the United States and its partners to start to draw down their troops in 2006.
On Wednesday, police arrested two suspected insurgents carrying 72 bombs, police Lt. Col. Ahmed Hajoul said. He said the pair said they planned to hide the bombs in the largely Shiite city of Hillah to explode when the polls opened.
Rumors also swept the Iraqi capital early today that the water supply had been poisoned after warnings against drinking tap water were broadcast through mosque loudspeakers, but they were quickly denied by the Health Ministry.
Up to 15 million Iraqis will choose 275 members of the new parliament from among 7,655 candidates running on 996 tickets, representing Shiite, Sunni, Kurdish, Turkomen and sectarian interests across a wide political spectrum. Iraqis do not vote for individual candidates, but instead for lists – or tickets – that compete for the seats in each of the 18 provinces.
Some preliminary returns were expected late today, but final returns could take days or even weeks.
Associated Press
A British soldier monitors a police station Wednesday from a tower during heightened pre-election security in Az Zubayr, Iraq.
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