Voting Commences In
Iraq Legislative Polls
Iraqi
troops, police, prisoners and the infirm began voting on
Thursday, three days ahead of a scheduled parliamentary
election.
Special voting is taking place for groups not able to cast
ballots in Sunday's poll, most of them from the 670,000-strong
security forces assigned to protect voting stations.
Test of stability
The polls are seen as pivotal for the divided country where
U.S. troops are billed to leave by the end of Year 2011.
The outcome of the election, Iraq's second full national poll
since the invasion, will test progress towards stability.
Police in Anbar, a desert province that became the heartland of
Iraq's Sunni Muslim-based insurgency after the 2003 U.S.-led
invasion, said they had briefly imposed an overnight vehicle
curfew after finding a fuel tanker primed with explosives.
The discovery came a day after at least 33 people were killed in
volatile Diyala province northeast of Baghdad when three suicide
bombers attacked police stations and a hospital.
Police said they had arrested 10 suspects in connection with the
coordinated assaults in Baquba, Diyala's provincial capital.
The contenders
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has based his campaign for a
second term, in part, on claiming credit for a sharp fall in
violence as all-out war between once dominant Sunnis and the
majority Shi'ites empowered by Saddam Hussein's fall receded.
He faces a stiff challenge from his erstwhile Shi'ite partners
and also from a secular, cross-sectarian alliance headed by
former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
NAN/Yinka
