Iraqis vote amid violence
Bush calls election a 'resounding success'
 | |
| |
| RELATED |
• Iraqis brave bombs to vote
|
 VIDEO |
 CNN's Christiane Amanpour reports on voter enthusiasm.
 An Iraqi in Baquba "defeating the terrorists" by voting.
 Iraqis brave long lines and threats to vote.
|
|
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Polls have closed and ballot counting has begun after Iraq's first free election in a half century, with officials reporting a higher than expected turnout of registered voters amid attacks and threats of violence.
Insurgents carried out more than a dozen attacks across the country on Sunday, killing at least 25 people and wounding 71 others.
After the voting, President Bush said the balloting was a "resounding success" and praised Iraqis who "have taken rightful control of their country's destiny." (Bush transcript)
At least eight suicide bombings took place during the voting. There are reports of a ninth, but CNN has not confirmed those reports.
There were eight other types of attacks as well, including one in which insurgents identified Iraqi civilians as having voted -- based on the ink on their fingers -- and threw grenades at them, killing them.
Prime Minister Tony Blair urged Britain to "embrace the bright future of Iraq's new democracy" after Sunday's elections, while expressing condolences to the families of British troops killed in a plane crash north of Baghdad.
Blair gave no details about the crash of a British Royal Air Force C-130 Hercules.
U.S. military officials said the crash took place about 25 miles north of Baghdad, near Balad. Search-and-rescue operations are under way.
U.S. commanders expecting a greater level of violence said they were pleasantly surprised that their security operation had paid off, CNN's Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour reported from the Iraqi capital.
The Independent Election Commission of Iraq clarified an earlier estimate of a 72 percent turnout in Sunday's election, saying that the "figures are only very rough, word-of-mouth estimates gathered informally from the field."
"It will take some time for the IECI to issue accurate figures on turnout," the statement said. "What is certainly the case is that turnout has exceeded expectations throughout the country."
More than 14.2 million Iraqis were registered for the vote. Polls have closed, although voters who were in line at the time of poll closings were being allowed to cast their ballots.
U.N. election organizer Carlos Valezuela told CNN that while he was "happy with the turnout," it was too early to report numbers.
"I would rather until we have much better reporting to be able to come up with figures," he said.
CNN correspondents reported that turnout was sporadic across the nation after 30,000 polling booths opened at 7 a.m. on Sunday (11 p.m. ET Saturday) under the watchful eye of Iraqi security forces and U.S. troops. Voting ended at 5 p.m. (9 a.m. Sunday ET).
In former president Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, polling stations were virtually empty. But in other parts of the country booths were packed with people casting their ballots, many of them for the first time in their lifetime.
In the northeastern town of Baquba, CNN's Jane Arraf found a polling station where a long line of Iraqi voters chanted and clapped their hands in front of the camera.
One voter told Arraf that Sunday's vote was a "bullet in the heart of the enemy."
Further north in the Kurdistan town of Salamanca, CNN's Nic Robertson reported seeing a 90-year-old woman being taken to a booth in a wheelbarrow. Others came on crutches to cast their ballot.
In the southern city of Basra, ITN's Juliet Bremner reported that turnout was almost 90 percent. She said voting was peaceful and orderly with elated Shias -- oppressed for decades under Saddam -- "determined to cast their votes in their desire for freedom, peace and food."
A statement posted on several Islamic Web sites, purportedly from a group headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for Sunday's attacks on polling areas in Baghdad as well as attacks in other areas of Iraq.
The statement said the group had promised to conduct the attacks "to make fun of those that demand democracy."
Insurgents in the capital had earlier distributed fliers warning citizens against participating in the election, claiming they would "wash Baghdad streets with voters' blood."
Eight suicide bombers struck in Baghdad, leaving 11 dead and at least 47 wounded. Other attacks, including the Sheikh Mar'rof attack, killed 10 and wounded six in Baghdad, Mosul and Balad, 50 miles north of the capital. Another blast killed three and wounded 14 on a bus near Hilla south of Baghdad.(Full story)
Leading the way
Sabah Kadim, a senior adviser in Iraq's Interior Ministry, shrugged off the string of attacks in a CNN interview.
"We have [terrorists] today, we had them yesterday, we will have them tomorrow," he said. "The difference will be that the Iraqi people have elected a government that is legitimate that will be much stronger in dealing with them."
Ashraf Qazi, the United Nations special representative for Iraq, said most, if not all, the country's polling stations were open and functioning -- and even at the ones where explosions occurred, voting resumed quickly.
"It's still early to predict what the ultimate outcome will be, but the initial reports coming in indicate, nationwide, a very good response," he told CNN.
Interim President Ghazi al-Yawer was among the first to vote on Sunday, saying he hoped the vote would be the first step towards a democracy that Iraqis will be proud of.
"Deep in my heart, I feel that Iraqis deserve free elections," al-Yawer said after voting in Baghdad.
He was followed hours later by Iraq's interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who cast his vote donning his glasses and smiling as he dipped his finger in ink.
As the voting began, the looming question was how many of the 14.2 million Iraqis registered to vote would cast ballots amid vows by insurgents to "wash" the streets with "voters' blood."
Of particular concern was the turnout of Sunnis in central Iraq, where the violence has been most pronounced in the past few weeks.
Iraqi officials had urged voters not to let the threat deter them from exercising the democratic right to choose their leaders.
In Baghdad alone, 15,000 U.S. soldiers were on patrol amid travel and weapons bans, and sealed airspace and borders. (Full story)
Iraqi expatriates in 14 countries, including the United States, had one last opportunity Sunday to cast votes, as the three-day window for out-of-country voting closed.
Pivotal moment
Iraqis were electing a 275-member transitional National Assembly, which will draft a new constitution and pick the country's next president and two vice presidents. The president, in turn, will select a prime minister.
Voters were also electing members of 18 provincial councils. In addition, residents of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region are electing a Kurdish parliament.
Because of security concerns, names of the 7,000 candidates vying for office were not revealed until the final days of January.
Two broad-based parties -- the United Iraqi Alliance and the Iraqi List -- were expected to lead the pack.
The United Iraqi Alliance is a Shiite-dominated slate of candidates backed by a leading cleric, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
While most of its support comes from the Shiite majority -- about 60 percent of the population -- the alliance also includes some smaller Sunni and Kurdish groups.
The Iraqi List is led by Allawi, who became the face of Iraqi government after sovereignty was restored in June.
Also likely to do well in the vote is the Kurdistan Alliance List, that includes the two main Kurdish political parties and nine smaller Kurdish parties.
Kurds make up less than 20 percent of the population, but they were expected to vote in large numbers because of a generally stable security situation in the northern part of the country, where they are concentrated.
Sunnis, who dominated Iraq under Saddam Hussein despite making up less than a quarter of the population, are likely to see an erosion in their political position after the vote.
Not only is the security situation tenuous in many Sunni areas, but also, two influential Sunni groups -- the Iraqi Islamic Party and the Association of Muslim Scholars -- are boycotting the elections.
CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Jane Arraf, Nic Robertson, Auday Sadeq and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.
Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
