What's new, what's uncertain in Sunnis' first vote
Baghdad (AsiaNews) Compared to last time, there is something new in the line-ups in front of Iraq's polling stations: Sunni voters. They are casting their ballot to elect the first permanent parliament since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
In predominantly Sunni province of Anbar, west of Baghdad, there is relative calmfor security reasons only 162 of the 207 polling stations are open and yet the turnout is 2 per cent higher than in the January elections.
"This is a happy day for all Iraqis," said Hamed Abbas, a government employee in Ramadi after voting.
Sunni participation is not only something newSunnis largely stayed away from the elections in Januarybut is also full of expectations and uncertainties for the future of Iraq.
Earlier this year, a call to boycott the elections and threats from the insurgency limited Sunni representation in the National Assembly to 6 per cent.
Since then, attitudes among Sunnis, who once ruled the county under Saddam, have gradually changed.
In the wake of the reconciliation conference in Cairo (November 19-21), secular and religious Sunni leaders have asked their supporters to vote and publicly distanced themselves from the terrorism of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda's point man in Iraq.
His group claimed responsibility for a bomb that exploded this morning in Baghdad.
The Association of Muslim Scholars, the most influential Sunni group tied to the "resistance", still considers the elections under "foreign occupation" illegitimate, but issued a statement that affirms the right of Iraqis to make their own choices.
One prominent association member, Abd al-Ghaffour al-Samarrai, has joined about 1000 Sunni clerics in issuing a fatwa urging a vote.
According to Sheikh Mahmoud Mehdi al-Sumaydai, another member of the Association of Muslim Scholars, Iraqis should not resist just foreign occupation but also Zarqawi's "masked terrorism".
According to Saleh al-Mutlek, a Sunni candidate on the list of the Iraqi National Dialogue Front, one of three parties within the Sunni-dominated Iraqi Consensus Front, today's elections will open the door to Sunni-US talks on reducing violence.
Al-Mutlek is convinced that should the two sides reach an agreement, they could "cut the oxygen" from radicals and terrorists like al-Zarqawi.
Iraqi government officials are predicting that a strong Sunni contingent in parliament could participate in negotiating local ceasefire deals and other confidence-building measures between guerrilla leaders.
Nathan Brown, political science and international relations at George Washington University, warns however that it is not easy to predict how Sunnis will vote since they have not done it before.
According to the noted MidEast expert, many Sunni votes might not go Sunni-centred parties, but to Iyad Allawi's mixed Iraqi National List.
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