Polls open in Iraq
Voting is under way in Iraq today to elect provincial councils.
Polls opened today under extremely tight security, which includes driving bans in major cities and searches of all voters.
The election is considered an important test of Iraq’s stability after nearly six years of conflict. There was no reports of serious violence in the hours before the polls opened.
More than 14,000 candidates are running for 440 seats on the influential councils in all of Iraq’s provinces except for the autonomous Kurdish region in the north and the province that includes oil-rich Kirkuk, where ethnic groups were unable to reach a power-sharing formula.
Results are not expected for several days.
