Iraqis start early voting for new parliament

An employee of the Independent Iraqi Electoral Commission in Iraq (IECI) helps a wounded Kurdish in casting his vote in a ballot box at his hospital room in the northern Iraqi city Suleimaniya yesterday. Hospital patients, prison detainees and security forces started voting to elect a new parliament which will restore full sovereignty of the war-torn Iraq nearly three years after the US-led invasion.. PHOTO: AFP

Iraq's government announced it will close its borders, extend the nighttime curfew and restrict domestic travel starting Tuesday two days before the main election day to prevent insurgents from disrupting the vote.

"We are very prepared for the elections, and we are highly determined," Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said. "We hope that everyone participates and that it will be a safe day. ... We are at a historic juncture."

Voters will be choosing their first fully constitutional parliament since the 2003 collapse of Saddam Hussein. The 275-member assembly, which will serve for four years, will then choose a new government that US officials hope can win the confidence of the disaffected Sunni Arab minority the foundation of the insurgency.

In a statement Sunday, Iraq's election commission said it was investigating a fivefold increase in the number of new voters in Kirkuk "that is difficult to explain." Kurds want to incorporate the oil-rich northern city into their self-ruled region, an idea strongly rejected by the two other ethnic groups in the city, the Arabs and the Turkomen.

Although most of the 15 million eligible voters will cast ballots Thursday, soldiers, police, hospital patients and prisoners not yet convicted of crimes can vote Monday.

On Tuesday, the estimated 1.5 million Iraqi voters living outside the country can begin casting their ballots over a two-day period at polling centres in 15 countries, including the United States, Canada and Australia.

In violence security operations in western Iraq have killed more than 750 insurgents and captured almost 2,000 in the past few weeks, a senior defence ministry official said yesterday.

"Enemy casualties in the Euphrates Valley have reached 753 killed and 58 wounded," General Abdel Aziz Mohammed told a press conference in Baghdad.

"The number of detained is 1,978 and includes an emir (insurgent cell chief) named Khalaf Fanus who was turned in to police forces by his family.

"All zones along the valley have been cleared and we are maintaining an Iraqi and multinational military presence there until police forces arrive to secure the area."

On Monday seven people were killed and more than 30 wounded in attacks in Baghdad, including a blast near a hospital where special voting was taking place for Iraq's general election, a security source said.