Election officials and police reported no major violence, compared with Jan. 30, 2005, voting in which 17 people were killed. A driving ban was in effect for most of the day, turning Baghdad's normally traffic-choked streets into soccer fields for boys and young men using boxes and rocks as goal posts. Smartly dressed families strolled together to polling stations, past rows of chickens roasting on cafe spits and old men sipping tea and watching the procession from the city's broken sidewalks.
Many adults headed to vote with children in tow, a sign that the security fears of the past were gone. At a polling site in heavily Shiite Sadr City, election volunteers had laced the rooms with ribbons, glittering tinsel, silk roses and colored balloons that bore the messages, "I love you" and "Happy Birshday." The spelling was off, but the idea was clear.
"When people come to vote, they should be happy," the director of the polling station said when asked about the decorations.
But there were problems, with some voters saying their names did not appear on polling station voter rolls, denying them the chance to cast ballots. In some cases, people had gone to the wrong polling stations, not realizing they were supposed to vote only at their assigned location.
Some voters said there was no reason for their names to be missing. "This is not fair!" said one flustered, middle-aged man in the southern city of Kufa. "I can't believe this. I voted in this center during the last elections, but now I can't find my name here. I went to three other polling stations, but still no luck."
Other voters were assigned polling places far from home, and a driving ban made it difficult for them to reach their polls. The ban, originally scheduled to remain through the night, was lifted at 3 p.m., and voting was extended an hour past the scheduled closing time, until 6 p.m., to give people more time to vote. No turnout figures were expected to be released until today.
Since March, when al-Maliki launched a surprise offensive against Shiite militiamen in the southern city of Basra, his public image has changed. His metamorphosis from a supposedly weak leader struggling to earn respect from fellow lawmakers to a strongman exerting his authority quickly began drawing accusations from political rivals that he was a despot.
In the campaign's final days, al-Maliki launched a charm offensive in major cities, preaching against sectarianism and insisting that the election process itself - not the result - was the important thing.
