Turnout in Iraq's polls to elect councils governing 14 out of 18 provinces was lower than many had hoped due to voter registration problems and tight security.
Officials said today 7.5 million or 51 per cent of the more than 14 million registered voters had braved car bans, body searches, barbed wire barricades and checkpoints to take part.
That was lower than the 60 per cent or more that many political leaders, including Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, had spoken of during the campaign. Participation in Iraq's last vote, a parliamentary election in 2005, was 76 per cent.
The elections took place yesterday without the major bloodshed that has plagued Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein.
Mr Maliki's candidates appear headed for victories in the provincial polls, a result that could overturn the post-Saddam political order and strengthen the hand of a leader once seen as weak.
Although official preliminary results will not be published for days, leaders of rival Shia parties acknowledged that Maliki's State of Law coalition appeared to be headed for a substantial win and perhaps a landslide in Shia areas.
If confirmed, the results would amount to a crushing defeat for religious parties that have run Iraq's Shia provinces with little heed to Baghdad since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein.
The prime minister would have strong momentum in his bid to hold on to power in national elections later this year in the majority Shcountry.
Until now, Mr Maliki - who was installed by larger Shia religious parties in 2006 - had little clout of his own in the powerful regional governments that run cities and towns.
In Baghdad, turnout on Saturday appeared to have been just under 40 per cent, the independent electoral commission said.
Commission chief Faraj al-Haidari attributed the low rate in the capital to problems with voter registration records, which were based on a government food rations distribution list.
He said many people who failed to find their names on voter lists at polling stations appeared not to have updated their addresses in the records and had probably gone to the wrong ballot station.
"It's not our fault that some people couldn't vote because they are lazy, because they didn't bother to ask where they should vote," Mr Haidari said.
Reuters