Monitoring Iraq's elections

Monitoring Iraq's elections

Iraq's election day undoubtedly began with a bang.

Travelling with the United Nations Mission in Iraq (Unami) to polling stations outside of the capital meant getting up before dawn for me.

The streets and the city still had that quiet anxiousness about them of the night before, and a vehicle curfew was in place.

We - media and UN officials - gathered on the landing zone to head westward towards Ramadi just before 7am.

Almost on the dot, and as polls were due to open, we heard a loud bang somewhere in the distance. Then we were taking off and leaving the city behind.

My colleagues weren't going anywhere, though. They were standing on the roof of our Baghdad bureau doing live shots for TV, and growing more unnerved as "none stop explosions" punctured the morning air.

Police later told us nearly 100 mortars were fired in Baghdad this morning, and another 13 roadside bombs set off.

In total, 38 people were killed today, and about 90 more wounded in the attacks.

Arriving in Ramadi, US Army Lieutenant Jesse Burnette informed us that a blast had been heard there just 10 minutes earlier.

"It's just spiked overnight," he said in reference to attacks from both that  morning and the evening before.

The polling station they had picked out for us to visit was the al-Aradah school on the outskirts of town. Lt Burnette said this was an area of town where families of the Iraqi security forces lived, so there was unlikely to be any problems.

At the voting centre, we found a fairly orderly situation, with a couple of hundred people outside.

"Everything is normal," Muhammad Khalf Hassan, the centre co-ordinator, told us.

The Unami VIP we were travelling with was Jerzy Skuratowicz, the deputy special representative of the secretary general, who said he was impressed with what he'd found. Another Unami official expressed her delight to find it was a mixed-gender facility - no evident segregation.

Iraqi voters, too, told us everything had been going smoothly.

Hameed Ibrahim, a Ramadi native, had only good things to say:

"The election is good ... we want security and stability.

"You are seeing the turnout yourselves, and we're hoping for everything to be alright. There is no pressure on citizens, every voter should vote for what he wants."

Seeing only one carefully-chosen polling station in Ramadi, I can't confirm this was the case across town. But if there was no pressure on citizens here, I can't say I felt the same.

Perhaps it was just curiosity as to who this motley crew were and what they were doing there, but several times I found men clustering around me in a somewhat intimidating fashion. Others offered terse answers to questions.

The drive to and from the polling centre - under US military escort - also felt awkward. The convoy drew stares from all we passed, sometimes locals appeared to be lining the road just to watch.

We dusted off again, this time due south, for the Shia holy city of Najaf.

Sacred south

Najaf had a very different vibe. A day earlier, a car bomb apparently targeting pilgrims to the city left three dead.

On our arrival just past noon, the US military told us there had been no new attacks. Military reporter Erik Anderson said they'd been out to three polling stations already and that turnout was good.

He and the BBC's Hugh Sykes both agreed that in Najaf, bombings of this sort tend to galvanise voters rather than deter them.

The US military here seemed happier, if it's possible to pick up on that so readily. Driving into town, we didn't seem to elicit an excess of attention. Getting out, soldiers appeared comfortable moving among the locals.

There were plenty of people out on the streets - it was almost a festive air - but there wasn't a crowd at the polling centre we visited.

Hamza Qadhim, the centre's director said there were 2,900 voters registered to vote at that station. By 1-1:30pm, roughly 1,300 had shown up, or slightly less, he said.

Signage, ballot boxes and and all appeared in order.

And again, voters had only good things to say.

Said 65-year-old Sheikh Jassim Ibrahim al-Turfi, a local tribal leader:

"The polling here is very good."

"It's much better than 2005 ... you can see security spread out everywhere."

Behind schedule, the UN-assigned guards gave us barely 20 minutes at the polling centre to have a look around, but Marc Santora of the New York Times, did manage to talk one man who was having difficulties:

There were some problems, including some voters who were unable to find their names at various polling stations.

Raad Hassan Naji, 32, said: “I have worked for the Iraqi government for a year and I can’t find my name on the list here, or in any of the other polling stations … We just want to change the situation and make it better.”

And with that, we were whisked back to Baghdad, where, with the bombs out of the way already, people were turning out to vote in increasing numbers.

Where Iraq goes from here still remains to be seen.

Hours after polling closed, the country's Independent High Electoral Commission hailed the election as a "glorious day".

But as political parties already began to claim victory, Farag al-Haidary, the electoral commission chairman, warned "a great amount of time" will be needed to sort out all the results and urged the country to be patient.