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An Iraqi sits before a wall covered with election posters in downtown Baghdad. Iraq's first democratic election in half a century was held on Sunday.
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The Iraqi general election got under way Sunday under tight security by U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces. Amid threats of more terror attacks, Iraqis are choosing a National Assembly in the country's first democratic polls since the fall of Saddam Hussein. The polls are taking place at 5,300 polling stations nationwide in an atmosphere of virtual siege, with at least one suicide car bomb attack eported from Baghdad.
Iraqis are picking 275 representatives in a district-based proportional representation system who will draw up Iraq¡¯s new constitution. Interim President Ghazi al-Yawer, after casting his ballot, urged all Iraqis to vote, calling the election the first step to Iraqi participation in the free world.
The BBC reported long queues in front of voting stations in cities like Najaf, a predominantly Shia city that had suffered much repression under Saddam Hussein, with voters flocking to cast their ballots from the morning. In the Kurdish districts to the north, where 20 percent of Iraq¡¯s population lives, voter turnout was also high, reports say.
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Iraqi women queue at a polling station in Najaf, south of Baghdad, to exercise their right to vote on Sunday. The first free election in half a century took place in Iraq amidst sporadic bloody attacks./AP
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But in the capital and elsewhere, mortar fire and explosions could be heard from the morning. In anti-American Sunni strongholds like Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra, polling stations were mostly empty. A suicide car bombing at a checkpoint outside a school in Baghdad where balloting was taking place killed one police officer and wounded four. Reuters reported that a mortar attack near Hilla, south of Baghdad, killed one police officer. The polls will stay open 5:00 p.m. local time, and preliminary results should be available in a week, with final results being announced after 10 days.
Meanwhile, the Korean Embassy in Baghdad tightened security in the surrounding area and appealed to Korean expatriates in the country to avoid going outside. A school located about 80 m. from the embassy in a Shia residential area has been turned into a voting station. In cooperation with the U.S. military and local police, personnel guarding the embassy has been doubled, with night patrols stepped up ahead of time.
(Choi Jae-hyeok, jhchoi@chosun.com )
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