Iraq Elections

In elections expected to significantly alter the country's political equation, Iraqis today began choosing new provincial councils to replace the current ones, blamed for fueling years of sectarian strife. Late Friday, vehicular curfews took effect in cities, Baghdad's airport was closed and borders were sealed, signs of security concerns that remain high despite a major drop in violence in recent months. Polling stations were ringed with razor wire and under 24-hour police guard.

A recently elected parliament member was in hiding Thursday after the Iraqi security forces raided his home this week on a warrant connected with a bombing case that had been settled in 2008 through a tribal mediation process. The attempted arrest of Sheik Qais Jabouri, who had worked closely with the Iraqi government on sectarian reconciliation issues, has elicited charges from the secular Iraqiya election slate, on which he was a candidate, that Prime Minister Nouri Maliki is carrying out politically motivated arrests to stay in power after his own Shiite Muslim-led slate finished a close second in national elections March 7. The arrest attempt was among a series of raids directed against Iraqiya candidates in Baghdad and Diyala provinces.

Iraq's political process lurched toward crisis Sunday as the country's prime minister, president and interior minister threw their weight behind a ballot-by-ballot recount of the nation's parliamentary elections. In addition, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, whose election slate is locked in a tight race with that of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, invoked his military powers as Iraq's commander in chief to insist that the Independent High Electoral Commission respond to the recount demand issued by his political bloc and others.

The families have lived in these cramped blocks in the heart of old Baghdad for decades. Their ties wind along the boulevard called Kifa Street like the dozens of thin generator wires that run from building to building. When Hazem abu Ahmed was a boy, his father died and his mother supported him by washing onions for restaurants. The small apartment on Kifa Street would fill with the stinging odor of onions and he would cry. He met his oldest friend, Hadi, when they were children.

Suicide bombers attacked two police stations and a hospital Wednesday in the volatile city of Baqubah, killing at least 31 people just days before Iraq holds national elections. Bombings had been widely anticipated in the run-up to the elections, and the Baqubah assault targeting members of the security forces that will guard the polling stations on Sunday seemed designed to disrupt the vote. So far, however, fears of carnage similar to the attacks that killed hundreds of people on three occasions in Baghdad last year have not materialized.

For months, people have been waxing blue sky and screaming like Chicken Little about whether Iraq could pull off an election. At this early stage, who seems to have hit the mark? -- Compiled by Stephen W. Stromberg "The bottom line here is the U.N. had always thought that it might take something like eight months to get elections ready. And according to my math, there are not eight months between September and January." Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Sept.

The Iraqi Kurds' first democratic elections resulted in a Parliament split between the two major parties and will require a runoff vote for president, the Kurds' electoral commission announced Friday. The commission said neither Masoud Barzani of the Kurdistan Democratic Party nor Jalal Talabani, the rival chief of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, won 50% of Tuesday's vote for "single leader" of the Iraqi Kurdish people. There were several other minor candidates.

Allied pilots swept low over the towns of Iraqi Kurdistan on Tuesday, banking their warplanes to see the unusual sight below: crowds of Kurds lining up in the baking sun for a democratic election made possible by the planes' protection. On the ground, few Kurds looked up to see another of what have become regular flybys to deter any action by Iraqi troops and armor dug in within artillery range of many polling stations.

Iraq has completed the forced relocation of thousands of Kurds, an Iraqi government spokesman said. Citing security reasons, Iraq announced June 26 that it was clearing Kurdish and Arab citizens from a 20-mile-wide strip along its borders with Iran and Turkey. Iraq has not confirmed the number of Kurds relocated, but estimates range from 200,000 to 500,000.

Millions of Iraqis voted Saturday for a new 250-seat National Assembly, the first step in President Saddam Hussein's pledged introduction of limited democracy here. A heavy turnout was reported as the voters, buoyed by the successful conclusion of Iraq's eight-year war with Iran, went to the polls for the first time in five years. More than 950 candidates, including 62 women, sought election.

Iraq's political process lurched toward crisis Sunday as the country's prime minister, president and interior minister threw their weight behind a ballot-by-ballot recount of the nation's parliamentary elections. In addition, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, whose election slate is locked in a tight race with that of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, invoked his military powers as Iraq's commander in chief to insist that the Independent High Electoral Commission respond to the recount demand issued by his political bloc and others.

With more than 80% of the votes tallied in Iraq's parliamentary elections and the race still neck and neck, hopes that the country might move beyond its deep Shiite-Sunni divide appear to be fading in a stew of sectarian politics. Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, who once campaigned as a nationalist leader responsible for restoring security to all Iraqis, is now falling back on his Shiite Muslim religious identity to position himself against challenger Iyad Allawi, a secular Shiite popular with the minority Sunni Arab population.

Hunkered down in a community outside Baghdad, Raad Ali watched the national elections Sunday in anonymity. No one bothers him here. Strangers think he is just another displaced Iraqi from the capital. The days are long, and he misses his wife and children. He believes that the election results could mean either his return home or exile, far from his loved ones. With his button-down shirts, slacks and habitual smile, Ali looks like an unassuming civil servant or eager salesman growing into a chubby middle age. The only sign of worry is his five o'clock shadow.

Bombs and mortar shells pounded Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 40 people and wounding dozens more, as Iraqis, desperate for a brighter future, sought to cast their ballots in crucial national elections. The deadly blasts, which echoed across the capital before 7 a.m. and lasted until close to noon, threw a pall over the vote for the second four-year government since Saddam Hussein was toppled in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. In contrast to national elections in 2005, when U.S. military vehicles patrolled Baghdad, only Iraqi army and police guarded the city Sunday.

Dozens of mortar rounds thudded across Baghdad on Sunday morning and at least 12 people were killed as Iraqis went to the polls in an election testing the stability of the country's still-fragile democracy. Insurgents had vowed to disrupt the elections -- which they see as validating the Shiite-led government and the U.S. presence -- with violence in order to increase uncertainty over a looming U.S. troop drawdown and widen still jagged sectarian divisions. As the polls opened at 7 a.m., bombs began exploding and mortar rounds landing across the city.

Suicide bombers attacked two police stations and a hospital Wednesday in the volatile city of Baqubah, killing at least 31 people just days before Iraq holds national elections. Bombings had been widely anticipated in the run-up to the elections, and the Baqubah assault targeting members of the security forces that will guard the polling stations on Sunday seemed designed to disrupt the vote. So far, however, fears of carnage similar to the attacks that killed hundreds of people on three occasions in Baghdad last year have not materialized.

The two top contenders to lead Iraqi Kurds traded accusations of voting fraud one day after voters cast ballots in the Kurds' first free election. Hard-liner Jalal Talabani said a shortage of ballot boxes and voting slips cost him tens of thousands of votes. Masoud Barzani, who is more moderate, said voters were transported from one polling place to another so they could cast more than one ballot. Official results will not be available for two days or more.

"Welcome to Kurdistan" reads a new poster on the bridge over the river from Turkey into northern Iraq, greeting visitors to a country somewhere between a mirage and a miracle where historic elections are expected to take Iraq's 3.5 million Kurds one step closer to self-rule. The elections, initially scheduled for today, were put off until Tuesday after a problem was discovered in plans to guard against vote fraud.

As Iraqi lawmakers repeatedly miss deadlines for writing the new law urgently needed for elections to go ahead in January -- and for U.S. troops to go home -- America's diminishing role in the political process here is very much in evidence. Back in 2005, when Iraq's democracy was being formed, it was common for legislators to meet into the small hours of the morning in the presence of U.S. officials, who shuttled between the feuding camps, mediating disputes and pressuring them to stick to the timetable for a new constitution and for elections to be held.

As the commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, Army Lt. Gen. Charles H. Jacoby Jr. will play a key role in making the assessments on which the American military will base its final decision on whether to withdraw all combat forces from Iraq by August, the goal set by President Obama. After that, 50,000 U.S. troops will remain to help with training and logistics until the end of 2011. The current timetable calls for Army Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the top commander, to make a recommendation on withdrawal 60 days after crucial Iraqi elections due to take place Jan. 16. Amid growing concerns that the vote may be delayed by Iraqi political disputes, and in the wake of the devastating Oct. 25 bombings that killed 155 people in downtown Baghdad, Jacoby sat down with The Times to talk about the factors that will influence the decision.