72% turn out in Iraq despite violence

At the end of the polling when voters defied violence that saw 36 people killed across nation, Iraqi poll officials claimed 72% turn out.

An Iraqi election official claimed on Sunday that 72 per cent of eligible Iraqi voters who had registered had cast ballots nationwide as the voting ended. But the official later backtracked and offered conflicting, lower numbers for the turnout.

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The official, Adel al-Lami of the Independent Electoral Commission, offered no overall figures of the actual number of Iraqis who had voted till Sunday afternoon to back up the initial claim.

After being questioned in depth by reporters, he offered lower and conflicting numbers of the percentage of eligible and registered voters who had cast ballots.

Earlier, the top US adviser to commission, Carlos Valenzuela, offered a much more cautious assessment, saying turnout appeared to be high in many areas, but that it was too early to know for sure.

There has been little sign of voters in some heavily Sunni areas, such as the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, according to witnesses. But Valenzuela said earlier that some voters had shown up in the two cities.

Earlier, Iraqis turned out to vote on Sunday in their country's first free election in a half-century, defying insurgents who launched deadly suicide bombings and mortar strikes at polling stations. By midday, at least 36 people were dead but the violence had slowed and voting picked up.

Casting his vote, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi called it "the first time the Iraqis will determine their destiny." The head of the main Shiite cleric-endorsed ticket, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, said: "God willing, the elections will be good ... Today's voting is very important."

Despite the heavy attacks that began two hours after polls opened, turnout was brisk in many Shiite Muslim and mixed Shiite-Sunni neighbourhoods, both in Baghdad and in southern cities like Basra.

Even in the small town of Askan in the so-called "triangle of death" south of Baghdad - a mixed Sunni-Shiite area - 20 people waited in line at each of several polling centers. More walked toward the polls.

"This is democracy," said an elderly woman in a black abaya, Karfia Abbasi, holding up a thumb stained with purple ink to prove she had voted.

In one sign of potential trouble, polls at first were deserted in mostly Sunni Muslim cities like Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra around Baghdad, and in the restive, heavily Sunni northern city of Mosul.