Ethnic tensions mar vote in Iraq's Mosul

Deepa Babington:

Accusations of prejudice against Kurdish voters and complaints that names had been removed from electoral rolls tainted voting in Mosul on Thursday, as Iraq's election exposed the city's ethnic divisions.

Voting got off to an uncertain start when seven blasts boomed out over the northern city just as polling stations opened their doors after dawn.

Still, tens of thousands of residents walked miles through streets strewn with barbed wire to cast their votes in the first election for a full-term Iraqi parliament since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Lines of women in black gowns and men in robes voted without incident at many polling stations across the ethnically mixed city of two million people, but there were problems at others.

At one, in a mixed neighbourhood, tempers flared between election officials and Kurds who claimed nearly 300 Kurdish families were turned away when their names could not be found on the electoral roll.

"I am very angry," said Saleh Ahmed, a 45-year-old Kurd who insisted his name was mysteriously dropped from the roll despite his participation in an October constitutional referendum and in the Jan. 30 election for an interim government.

"They say this is a democratic country. This is our right," he shouted.

The U.S. military was called in to sort the problem out but soldiers were met with stubborn resistance from the local head of the Electoral Commission.

As a war of words broke out in the courtyard of the polling station, one Kurdish officer in the Iraqi army, who had been standing guard outside, repeatedly asked a U.S. officer for permission to shoot the electoral official.

There was similar confusion at another station, where voting came to a halt after illiterate men and women complained that election workers charged with marking their ballots were ignoring their wishes and giving the vote to other parties.

"I wanted to vote for the Kurdish list because I am a Kurd, but the worker marked something else and put my ballot in the box without showing it to me," said one man, as another blast rang out across the city.

It was unclear how he knew his ballot had been abused.

None of the claims of voting irregularities in Mosul were big enough to disrupt the vote, and many were mirrored elsewhere in Iraq, but they underlined how tense the city's rivalries are.

Mosul has seen frequent outbreaks of violence along ethnic and sectarian lines over the past two years.

Assassinations, murders and kidnappings are frequent and mistrust between Arabs and Kurds runs high, particularly after accusations that busloads of Kurds were brought into Mosul to influence the vote during October's referendum.

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