In last night's pre-election guide, I laid down some criteria by which to judge the success of Iraq's third free election. By those criteria, the election came out very well.
1. Security for Polling Places. The British Telegraph reports that this election was the least violent yet.
Despite a series of isolated violent incidents across Iraq, voters have turned out in large numbers for what looked set to be the country's most peaceful election so far. The relative calm surrounding today's poll contrasted sharply with the January 30 vote for an interim assembly, during which about 40 people were killed.
The New York Times agrees.
The day was strikingly peaceful, even in areas normally beset by violence. With more than 375,000 American and Iraqi troops and police officers fanned out across the country, the American command here reported only 35 armed attacks, about half the daily average, with only 14 against polling centers. On Jan. 30, when Iraqis elected a transitional government, insurgents attacked nearly 300 times.
2. Overall Turnout. Did the turnout beat the previous election? Again, the NYT:
Iraqi officials said initial indications were that as many as 11 million people cast ballots, which, if the estimate holds true, would put the overall turnout at more than 70 percent. With Iraqis still lining up to vote in front of ballot centers as the sun went down, Iraqi officials ordered the polls to stay open an extra hour.
The Los Angeles Times adds this important note:
Election officials estimated that between 10 million and 11 million of Iraq's 15.5 million registered voters turned out, equal to or more than the turnout during the October constitutional referendum.
3. Turnout in Sunni Regions. Here, as predicted, the indications are very good. From the Washington Post:
More than two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Sunni Arabs belatedly turned out in force to build a new Iraq, walking to polls by the hundreds of thousands Thursday for national elections that generated robust participation across the country's sectarian and ethnic divides.
The NYT:
The day's most dramatic events unfolded in the country's Sunni Arab neighborhoods, where hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who had boycotted the election in January came out this time to vote. Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad, like Adamiya, and in Kirkuk and Western Mosul, ordinarily tense and bereft of security, were filled with Iraqis walking to polling centers and lining up to cast their ballots.
Even in Anbar Province, where concerns about violence kept about a quarter of the province's 207 polling sites closed, American Marine officers said the voting far exceeded their expectations.
4. Turnout in Ramadi and Fallujah. Again from the WaPo:
In Ramadi, a provincial capital reduced to cratered buildings and empty streets by two years of warfare between insurgents and U.S. forces, fighting on the day of Iraq's Oct. 15 constitutional referendum kept turnout below 2 percent. More than 80 percent turned out Thursday in Ramadi and other insurgent strongholds in far western Iraq's Upper Euphrates valley, estimated a Ramadi election official, Yaseen Nouri. . . .
Long lines formed outside voting centers in Ramadi on Thursday despite an insurgent bombing at 7 a.m., when polls opened nationwide. Masked guerrillas of the anti-U.S. Iraqi Islamic Army movement, wearing tracksuits and toting AK-47 assault rifles, went out among houses to encourage people to vote. Witnesses said the guerrillas told them: Do not be afraid, we will protect you.
As for Fallujah, the London Times delivers this report:
"I've just been for a walk - you can't drive anywhere because of the risk of suicide bombs - to a couple of polling stations near my hotel in Baghdad, and voting is brisk. There are lots of people turning up: old ladies being driven in by police, young couples and so on.
"Somebody described it to me as being like a wedding party, which is over the top, but there is a very relaxed mood. People were extremely optimistic that they were taking part in something that would really change the country.
"We've got staff in three areas of Baghdad and in other parts of the country, where the story seems to be the same. In Fallujah the voting is so intense and the lines so long that they've actually run out of ballot papers.
What is most significant about the image that appears at the beginning of this post is that the man is waving an Iraqi flag. This was apparently a common sight in Babylon just yesterday. It indicates that for people of the many factions that make Iraq, the nation itself is recognized as something valuable, something to cherish. Even the most selfish partisan passions may now serve the common good, for every group wants a part of the nation. Niccolo Machiavelli observed that every state is either a principality or a republic. In the former, the state is the possession of one person, or one family bloodline. In the latter, the state is public property, belonging to its citizens. Neither Niccolo nor I have any doubt that the republic is the greater institution. We will not know for a long time whether Iraq has truly made the transition from the one to the other. But just right now, the indications are good.
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