BAGHDAD — Soldiers, police officers, prisoners and hospital patients cast ballots Wednesday in a run-up to provincial elections that are intended to redistribute power across Iraq and help quell sectarian and ethnic strife.
The early balloting ensured that security forces are available for duty Saturday, when the rest of Iraq’s voters will choose from among 14,467 candidates for 440 council seats.
About 15 million people are registered to vote in the election, which officials hope will redress inequities resulting from the last balloting in 2005. Most Sunnis boycotted that vote, leaving even Sunni-dominated regions under control of Shiite Muslims and Kurds and exacerbating ethnic and sectarian tensions.
“It most certainly contributed to many Sunnis falling into violent temptation,” the special U.N. representative to Iraq, Staffan de Mistura, said of their decision to disenfranchise themselves four years ago.
This time, the Sunnis are taking part, and if the results are widely accepted and the vote is deemed fair, de Mistura said, it would be a sign that Iraqis have left violence behind.
One act of violence did mar what otherwise appeared to be a calm day of voting.
Gunmen fired on a polling site in Tuz Khurmatu, about 135 miles north of Baghdad, killing two policemen. The gunmen escaped, said police Lt. Farhad Abdullah.
