High Turnout, Low Level of Violence As Iraqis Vote

Iraqis of all ethnic groups turned out in large numbers yesterday to elect a four-year parliament with the encouragement of local insurgents in at least one major Sunni city.

Masked gunmen guarded polling stations in Ramadi, a centre of armed resistance to the US occupation. "The mujahedin were at the polling station urging us not to let our voice be split. They urged us to go for either of the two Sunni lists, the Consensus Front or Saleh al-Mutlaq," said Ali Abed al-Dulaimi, a retired car salesman, in a telephone interview. Both lists, one Islamist, one secular, claim to have links with the nationalist gunmen.

In Baghdad four mortar rounds struck the Green Zone, the main US headquarters in Iraq, and a handful of bombs were reported elsewhere, but there were no suicide attacks as there had been during polling in January when 40 people died.

Al-Qaida in Iraq, led by the Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, called the poll a "satanic project" but made no threat of disruption, apparently aware most Sunnis were keen to vote.

The White House was encouraged by what it said seemed to be a high voter turnout and "relatively low" levels of violence. "The Iraqi people are showing the world that all people - of all backgrounds - want to be able to choose their own leaders and live in freedom," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.

Tony Blair said the elections were an "extraordinary and uplifting" event in the history of Iraq as it tries to rebuild itself. "Whatever the huge challenges there are ahead, it shows very clearly that given the choice, the Iraqi people want the same as the rest of us," Mr Blair said in Brussels.

Cars were banned throughout Iraq save for election officials, the media, and others with special passes. In Baghdad people played football on the empty streets. Families pushed prams or sat in parks in the mild sunshine, enjoying a rare day of safety. The combined list of Shia religious parties, who lead the present government, appeared to be faring well in Shia areas, but in mixed districts of Baghdad the secular list led by ex-prime minister Ayad Allawi was picking up support.

"He's tough. He's strong. We need a man like him," said Munthar Ahmed Fawzi, a retired army major and a Sunni, speaking after voting in the Ahrar boys' school in a mixed part of Adamiya, northern Baghdad. Firyal, his wife, voted for the Consensus Front: "They are clean. They are not corrupt."

Emad Abdul Jabar, head of the polling station, said: "Sunnis have been saying 'we strongly want to participate, so that we don't lose again'."

Women, too, were turning out. Each party or bloc has to nominate a woman for every two men, to ensure they are not at the bottom of the list and provide strong female representation in parliament.

Because of the pressure to take part, the election commission extended voting by an extra hour throughout Iraq. But in Anbar province, a Sunni stronghold, only 162 polling stations opened out of a planned 207, said Hussein Hindawi, head of the national election commission. The reasons were being investigated, he added.

Some parties complained ahead of the poll there would be shortages of ballot papers or that officials would be afraid to work in war-torn areas. In Falluja, a Sunni city in Anbar, 11 out of 35 polling stations did not receive ballot boxes, while some sites ran out of ballots in the early morning, said Mayor Dhari al-Arsan, who put turnout at 45% by early afternoon.

Some voters complained of fraud. A Sunni businessman in the mixed Baghdad suburb of Yarmuk, who asked not to be named, said he told officials he and his two friends wanted to vote for list 555, the main Shia religious list. "We kept coming back, even though our fingers had the purple dye to show we had already voted. In the end we voted five times, and we actually voted for the Iraqi Islamic party," he said. The party is part of the Sunni Arab Consensus Front.

US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who had urged Sunnis to vote, said: "It is a good day ... good for us, good for Iraq."