50 years, defying insurgents who killed dozens of people and injured many others, church officials said. Turnout in Iraq’s historic election was likely at least 72 percent of registered voters, a far higher figure than was expected, reported Iraq’s Electoral Commission.
"I can only thank God for how well the elections are going. Even if forecasts had definitely not been good, there’s no lack of tranquility in the Baghdad community," said Baghdad’s Chaldean Auxiliary Bishop Shlemon Warduni in an interview with AsiaNews, a Catholic Internet website.
"Everyone is going to vote" said the bishop who voted with non-Christian religious representatives. He spoke as elsewhere in Baghdad and other areas Iraq insurgents, including Islamic hardliners, attacked polling stations with a string of suicide bombings and mortar volleys.
SUICIDE BOMBERS
The violence killed 44 people, including nine suicide bombers, news reports and officials said, although it was not clear how many Christians were among them.
A British C-130 military transport plane crashed north of Baghdad, and the wreckage was strewn over a large area, British officials said , but there was no word on how many were on the crashed plane.
Meanwhile Iraqi Christians, who were among those singled out for attacks by Islamic radicals opposing the elections, prayed for peace Sunday, January 30, BosNewsLife monitored.
"We prayed for peace and democracy; we did so in the past, are doing so today, and will continue in the future," said the Chaldean Archbishop of Basra, southern Iraq, in an interview. "Christians, like all Iraqis, want nothing more than a government, a constitution, democracy," the bishop, Djibrail Kassab, was quoted as saying by AsiaNews.
SECURITY CONCERNS
But he admitted that not many people attended Sunday Mass because of security concerns. In Mosul, which the Bible refers to as Nineveh, church leaders reported that ballots and ballot boxes had not arrived in several districts amid reports that six explosions rocked the town. But authorities reportedly planned to open those polling stations Monday, January 31.
Despite the apparent security difficulties, a church official said he was satisfied with the turn out in Northern Iraq. "All those holding voting rights, used that right today", the Chaldean bishop of Amadiya, Rabban Al Qas, told AsiaNews.
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He played down concerns about the outcome of a non-official referendum on independence of the area run by Kurdish authorities, known as Kurdistan, which was also held Sunday, January 30.
"Kurdistan as a whole is in favour of unification with Baghdad in a federal structure," he was quoted as saying. In Washington, United States President George W. Bush described Iraq’s election as a "resounding success," saying the Iraqi people have shown a commitment to democracy.
Voters were choosing 275 members of a national assembly, whose key task will be to debate and approve a new constitution. They also elected members of 18 provincial assemblies and the autonomous Kurdish parliament in
the north.
NEW GOVERNMENT
The national assembly will pick a new government to succeed the interim administration now in power, which was formed last year by the U.S.-led occupation authority, in consultation with the United Nations.
Speaking at the White House, Bush said Iraqis rejected threats of violence and refused to accept an "anti-democratic ideology of terrorists." He stressed that the world was hearing the voice of freedom from the center of the Middle East.
Some 100,000 Iraqi security forces guarded polling stations and carried out operations against terrorist groups during the vote, added Bush who also vowed that America will continue to training Iraqi personnel to fight terrorism and defend Iraq’s "rising democracy." (
RELIGIOUS MINORITIES
Yet, international human rights groups have expressed concern that Christians and other religious minorities, including Sunnis, may feel left out when, as expected, the Shiite majority community will take control of the government for the first time in an Arab country in 11 centuries.
There are also worries that the new cabinet could impose Islamic legislation. Human rights watchers believe the only way to ensure that tens of thousands of Christian refugees will return from neighboring Syria and Jordan is to give Iraq’s up to one million strong Christian community a voice in a more democratic and peaceful nation.
In some areas of Iraq, people already saw no reasons to participate in the political process. Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit was "a ghost town", reported the French News Agency AFP. An AFP correspondent went to eight polling stations where staff apparently said that "no-one had voted."
(With the BosNewsLife News Center, Stefan J. Bos, church and news sources in Iraq).
