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Voters in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq have
been turning out in large numbers to take part in
the country's election. VOA's Jeffrey Young has been
tracking the balloting at a number of polling
stations in the city of Erbil.
The polls opened at seven a.m. Sunday, just one hour
after the end of a nationwide overnight curfew.
Despite the chill, people started coming to the
balloting stations immediately.
The lines of voters waiting to cast ballots soon
grew lengthy. Men were sent to stand to one side,
the women to another before entering the stations.
Every person was searched carefully before being
allowed to proceed.
So far, the voting has been peaceful, despite
warnings by insurgents that the election would be
disrupted.
The spectrum of who has come to vote is wide, from
those just 18 years old, the minimum age, to the
very elderly. People pushed invalids in wheelchairs
to the polls, and helped along others having trouble
walking. At one polling place, several people
carried a crippled man in their arms so he could
vote.
The ballot itself is huge. There are some more than
100 separate political parties, each fielding a
large number of candidates. But in the Kurdistan
Region, two parties predominate: the Kurdistan
Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan.
Before the election these two parties joined
together to field a common slate. The tactic is
meant to try and place as many Kurdish
representatives in the new National Assembly, both
to strengthen the Kurd's political voice in Baghdad
and to help ensure that when Iraq's new constitution
is written later this year Kurdish interests such as
continued autonomy are preserved.
To ensure people do not vote more than once, each
voter must dip a finger in indelible blue ink. And
people leaving the voting stations are holding those
fingers high, to show they have taken part in Iraq's
first free balloting in half a century.
http://www.voanews.com
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