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Iraq shuts down to vote

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   http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=national&story_id=012905b1_iraq_thevote

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=national&story_id=012905b1_iraq_thevote

Iraq shuts down to vote

U.S. officials say security concerns, rather than political convictions, will determine who goes to polls tomorrow.

The Associated Press

YOUSSIFIYAH, Iraq - There were few election posters or banners yesterday but plenty of graffiti promising death to voters in this heavily Sunni Arab area south of Baghdad, where nostalgia for Saddam Hussein endures and hostility toward the United States is widespread.

Here and elsewhere in Sunni strongholds, insurgents do not have to do much to persuade people to boycott the election that majority Shiites and Kurds are expected to dominate. Many Sunni Arabs, who make up about 20 percent of the population, believe tomorrow's balloting will be tainted by the American occupation and Iranian meddling.

Many Sunnis plan to stay home, threatening the legitimacy of the vote.

U.S. officials say security concerns - rather than political convictions - will largely determine who comes out to vote.

Just ahead of the first free balloting in Iraq in half a century, the country began battening down for the vote. A 7 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew began yesterday and will stay in effect through Monday. Baghdad International Airport was closed, effective last night, and the nation's borders will be sealed for the election period. Medical teams are on alert, and nationwide restrictions on traffic will be imposed from today to Monday to try to deter car bombs.

In hopes of discouraging Iraqis from voting in tomorrow's election - 21 months after Saddam's downfall in April 2003 - insurgents have accelerated attacks.

About 300,000 Iraqi, American and other multinational troops and police will provide security at 5,300 polling centers.

Voters will choose a 275-member National Assembly and governing councils in the 18 provinces. Voters in the Kurdish-ruled area will choose a new regional parliament.

Expatriate Iraqis began casting ballots amid tight security in early voting in 14 countries from Australia to Sweden to the United States.

Majority Shiites, who make up an estimated 60 percent of the population, are expected to turn out in large numbers tomorrow, as are the Kurds. Iraqis will choose from among 111 lists of candidates for the National Assembly, rather than voting for individuals, and the ticket endorsed by the Shiite clerical hierarchy is expected to fare best.

In Baghdad, U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte insisted some Sunni Arabs will vote.

"Sunnis don't only live in some of these beleaguered provinces, they live here in Baghdad, they live in other parts of the country," Negroponte said on CBS' "The Early Show." "I think you're going to see participation across the board."

At the United Nations in New York, a spokesman for Secretary-General Kofi Annan said "everything has been set in place for a valid election process."

"We're in the middle of a process that will eventually, we hope, produce a democratic system of government, coming out of an autocratic system under Saddam Hussein," spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

A Western election adviser in Baghdad said Sunni turnout could be as high as 50 percent if election day violence is low and if the boycott call is not heeded. But it could also be as low as 15 percent, the adviser said on condition of anonymity.

To discourage turnout, Sunni-led insurgents have stepped up attacks against polling centers, candidates and electoral workers across Iraq. In response, U.S. and Iraqi forces have accelerated sweeps to detain suspected insurgents. Residents say dozens of men have been rounded up in recent days.

To try to bolster public confidence, Iraqi officials yesterday announced the arrests of three more purported lieutenants of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, including his military adviser and chief of operations in Baghdad.

U.S. soldiers also arrested a prominent Sunni Arab cleric and two of his brothers, raiding their home at dawn.

The cleric, Sheik Abbas Jassim, is a senior member of the Association of Muslim Scholars, an influential Sunni group that has called for an election boycott.

Small cracks, however, have begun to appear in the Sunni shunning of the vote.

In Diyala province, the Iraqi Islamic Party - the country's largest Sunni party - has partially reversed its decision to withdraw from the election, asking supporters to vote for local government candidates, local party leader Hussein al-Zobeidi said.

Voting in Iraq

Here's a look at the timetable for tomorrow's elections in Iraq.

Polls open at 7 a.m. Iraq time (9 tonight Tucson time) and close at 5 p.m. (7 a.m. in Tucson). The hours could be extended if people are still showing up to vote. Preliminary results are expected within a few hours of the polls' close, but the election commission is not promising specific briefings, and final results are not likely for a week or more.

Iraqis living outside their country could vote between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. local time yesterday, today and tomorrow in Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Iran, Jordan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.



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