Islamic parties will be heavily represented on provincial councils across Iraq, according to final results released Friday from council races in 12 provinces that documented enthusiastic voter participation in the north and south and lower turnout in Baghdad and Sunni-populated areas.
“This is a message to all political parties to respect the Islamic identity of the people,” said Jalaleddin Saghir, a preacher at a prominent mosque in Baghdad and a candidate on a Shiite Muslim-backed political list.
The partial results from the Jan. 30 elections–which did not include figures for the 275-seat National Assembly–were released on another day of deadly attacks by insurgents. Eleven Iraqis were killed in a massacre at a bakery shop near Baghdad, and at least 12 worshipers were killed when a car bomb exploded outside a mosque in a nearby town.
Elections officials, facing growing complaints, said results of the National Assembly vote would be available in “a few days maximum.”
“The counting is in the very final stages,” said Abdul-Hussein Hendawi, head of the Election Commission.
But the provincial council returns provided the first solid indication of voter turnout in Iraq’s first free election since the 1950s. In two Kurdish-populated areas in northern Iraq, turnout reached 80 percent and 89 percent; it reached 73 percent around the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala in the predominantly Shiite south. Turnout was significantly lower–48 percent–in Baghdad, and dropped to 34 percent in Diyala province, east of Baghdad.
Election officials cautioned that turnout totals for the national election could differ from the provincial elections. At most polling sites, voters were given two ballots–one national, one local–and officials said some may have turned in only one.
Islamic parties dominated the results in the southern provinces, where Shiite religious leaders have assumed growing importance since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Faring best were the mainstream Shiite religious parties that returned from exile after the U.S. invasion. They drew on infrastructure honed during years abroad and the perceived support of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most influential religious leader.
A strong showing also was posted by a faction loyal to the late father of Moqtada Sadr, a young Shiite cleric whose militia fought U.S. forces twice last year. Sadr’s father, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq Sadr, was assassinated in 1999.
Though attacks promised by opponents of the Jan. 30 elections failed to stop the voting, violence has persisted across Iraq.
In an eastern neighborhood of Baghdad, gunmen in three cars pulled up to a bakery early Friday morning, blocked traffic and opened fire on the store with automatic weapons. In a hail of bullets and window glass, 11 members of a family who owned and operated the bakery were killed, including a 10-year-old boy, according to police and witnesses.
Neighbors said the bakery was run by Shiites.
A few hours later, near a Shiite mosque in Balad Ruz, 40 miles northeast of Baghdad, a pickup truck loaded with vegetables exploded, killing at least 12 people.
Saghir, delivering the Friday sermon at the Baratha Mosque in Baghdad, said the attacks were designed to undermine Shiite political progress.
“We know they are going to reorganize their ranks and try to hit again. But whatever they do will not deter us from our march,” he said in a sermon that, at times, drew impassioned cries from the crowd. “They are killers and thugs.”
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Also Friday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld continued his brief visit to Iraq, shuttling around the country to observe Iraqi security forces in training, The Associated Press reported.
In talks with Iraqi and American soldiers, Rumsfeld emphasized the importance of handing over security so U.S. troops can go home. But he acknowledged that it takes time to train and equip the Iraqis.
“Once they have that confidence, that capacity and capability, our forces, coalition forces, will be able to go home,” Rumsfeld told U.S. troops in Mosul in northern Iraq.