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There was not an Iraqi
flag in sight across the Kurdish self-rule region
yesterday as Kurds went to the polls, many saying
they were voting to preserve their de facto
independence from Baghdad.
Election officials in the self-rule provinces of
Dohuk, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah estimated a turnout of
75%-80%, while in the contested city of Kirkuk,
which has a large Kurdish population, polling was
described as "huge".
"I am voting for my future and for the future of my
people who have suffered so much from central rule,"
said Shwan Mohammed, a history student at
Sulaymaniyah University, as he queued outside a
polling station clutching the Kurdish flag.
As with the campaign in Iraq's most stable region,
voting passed off largely without incident. In the
worst trouble residents of a village outside Arbil
threw rocks at a convoy carrying the head of an
Islamist Kurdish group running against the major
Kurdish alliance.
Kurdish leaders also complained that thousands of
people had been deprived of the right to vote
because of mistakes in the electoral roll made by
the Independent Election Commission in Baghdad.
The Kurdistan Alliance, dominated by Massoud
Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party and Jalal
Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, hopes to
repeat its strong performance in Iraq's first
post-war elections in January. In that poll it
emerged as the second largest bloc in parliament and
formed a coalition government with the winning Shia
alliance.
With greater Sunni Arab participation this time
around the Kurds, who make up a fifth of the
population of Iraq, expect to lose some of their 77
seats, but seek to at least protect their political
gains enshrined in the new federal constitution.
In the northern city of Sulaymaniyah one of the
first to vote as polls opened was Iraq's Kurdish
president Jalal Talabani.
"It is a historic day for Iraq and the region," he
said, before alluding to some of the political
battles that lie ahead. "I hope that the Iraqi
people will stay united. We hope that the people
will vote to keep the constitution that was approved
by the Iraqi people."
A steady trickle of voters in the morning turned
into a flood at midday, as entire families - men in
baggy traditional trousers, women in sequinned
dresses, turned up to vote. Outside polling stations
policemen linked arms and danced.
"Who can say it was wrong to bring us freedom?" said
Barham Salih, Iraq's planning minister, as he
watched the celebrations.
www.guardian.co.uk
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