BAGHDAD — Soldiers, police, 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.
“It is the curtain-raiser to see whether we are moving really from bullets to ballots in Iraq,” he said.
One act of violence marred what otherwise appeared to be a calm day of voting and underscored military officials’ reminders that insurgents remain active. Gunmen fired on a polling site being used for special voting in Tuz Khurmatu, about 135 miles north of Baghdad, killing two policemen. The gunmen escaped, said police Lt. Farhad Abdullah.
Areas to the north and south of Baghdad are considered the most likely to experience violence during or after the voting because of the bitter battles for control of the land and resources and ongoing insurgent activity.
In northern Nineveh province, where Kurds dominate the provincial council, Sunni Arabs who sat out the last vote are expected to make a strong showing because of their large population. The Kurds’ loss of control could exacerbate tensions in Nineveh, where violence has increased in recent months as other areas of the country are enjoying relative stability.
