Iraqis braved surging violence in their oil-rich nation to cast votes in the first parliamentary elections since U.S. troops pulled out more than two years ago.
Baghdad residents walked to polling stations in a city plastered with army troops and declared off-limits to vehicles for the day. Five policemen were wounded in two bomb attacks near polling centers in Mosul city in Nineveh province in the north of the capital, according to an e-mailed police statement.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, 63, is seeking a third term in office in the nation of 33 million people, which he has governed since 2006. The new parliament will choose a president to replace Jalal Talabani, who has been receiving medical treatment in Germany since suffering a stroke in December 2012.
Under Maliki's leadership, Iraq, with the world's fifth-largest oil reserves, overtook Iran as the second-biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, helped by foreign investors including Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) and Exxon Mobil Corp. It pumped 3.4 million barrels a day in March, 86 percent more than in December 2006, when he first became prime minister, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Oil wealth has buoyed the economy, which the International Monetary Fund forecasts to expand by 5.9 percent this year. The Maliki government plans a record $145.9 billion budget for 2014, up from $119 billion in 2013.
Even so, Iraqis are still contending with power cuts, poor roads and a housing shortage 11 years after a U.S.-led invasion ended Saddam Hussein's rule. The U.S. withdrew its combat forces from Iraq at the end of 2011.
Surging Violence
They're also dealing with swelling sectarian violence that forced the tight election security and has crimped participation in the balloting.
Troops from the Shiite Muslim-dominated Maliki government are battling fighters from al-Qaeda and allied Sunni Muslim forces to regain control of parts of western Anbar province. Some Sunni militant leaders have called on fellow Sunnis to boycott the elections, while other Sunni mosque preachers have urged their people to vote.
"There will be voting in Anbar province, in all its districts, except Fallujah and other areas that witness security tension," Mohsen Al-Mussawi, a member of the Independent High Electoral Commission, said by telephone today. "We have opened polling centers for families displaced by the events in Anbar close to the areas where they are now residing."
Maliki's relations with the Sunnis and the country's ethnic Kurds in the north have become strained.
Sectarian Strains
Forty-four Sunni lawmakers have boycotted parliament since December, when security forces arrested one of them, killed his brother and broke up an anti-government protest in Anbar. A dispute with the government prompted authorities in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region to suspend oil exports through the national pipeline in December 2012.
Rival Shiite Muslim groups, including the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq of Ammar al-Hakim and the Sadrist Movement of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, also criticize Maliki for what they say is his unwillingness to share power.
Political infighting is likely to continue after the elections and may delay the formation of a new cabinet for months, Robin Mills, the head of consulting at Dubai-based Manaar Energy Consulting and Project Management, said by phone on April 20. Maliki began his second four-year term in December 2010 after a nine-month political deadlock, following inconclusive polls.
Political Clashes
Political disputes are impeding the passage of an energy law, blocking approval of the budget and discouraging non-oil investments. Transparency International, a Berlin-based anti-graft group, ranks Iraq 171st among 175 countries and territories in its 2013 Corruption Perceptions Index. Iraq ranked 137th out of 159 in 2005.
Security issues are another drag on the economy. Armed attacks have prevented workers from repairing the nation's main export pipeline, which halted operation more than 50 days ago.
Acts of violence, aggravated by the civil war in neighboring Syria, have intensified, killing 3,015 civilians in the first three months of this year, according to the unofficial Iraq Body Count website. This year's fatalities are more than triple the number in the same period of 2013.
More than 9,000 candidates are vying for 328 parliament seats in a process to be monitored by more than 1,200 international observers and 30,000 Iraqis. About 21.5 million people are eligible to vote. Iraqis living abroad, as well as members of the army and security forces, medics and prisoners, voted on April 28 in an operation that drew a turnout of 91.46 percent, according to the electoral commission.
Initial, unofficial partial results are expected two hours after polls close at 6 p.m. local time, with official results to be announced in 15 days, according to the electoral commission's Al-Mussawi.
To contact the reporters on this story: Khalid Al-Ansary in Baghdad at kalansary@bloomberg.net; Nayla Razzouk in Dubai at nrazzouk2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaric Nightingale at anightingal1@bloomberg.net Amy Teibel, Andrew Atkinson
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