Polls close in key Iraqi Kurdistan dual election

Polls closed on Saturday in presidential and legislative polls in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region in voting expected to confirm the grip on power of its leaders, an AFP correspondent said.

Polling stations had stayed open for an extra hour because some voters complained they were unable to find their names on electoral lists.

The people of the relatively peaceful northern enclave were electing a president directly this time, unlike in 2005 polls that elected only a parliament.

Before the close, a list comprised of four communist and Islamist parties alleged that the two dominant Kurdish parties in northern Iraq had committed electoral violations.

They said regional president Massud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan had bussed unregistered voters to polling stations to cast ballots.

Nusherwan Mustafa, leader of a smaller opposition party that appeared to have captured an enthusiastic cross-section of voters disenchanted with the two main parties, also complained over the voting extension.

More than 2.5 million Kurds were eligible to vote. Final results are not expected for several days, as ballots must be collected in the regional capital Arbil before being transported to Baghdad for the count.

Five candidates were registered for the presidential race, including incumbent and hot favourite Barzani, while 24 political lists contested the 111 seats in the assembly which first convened in 1992.

More than 2.5 million Kurds were eligible to cast their ballots, while more than 100,000 Kurdish members of Iraq's armed forces voted on Thursday, along with police, prisoners and the sick.

Kirkuk is the most important thing to Kurds... Only Barzani and the KDP-PUK can bring it back

Yunis Mohammed Qader

Dispute with Baghdad

As the poll drew near, Barzani and other Kurdish leaders churned out fiery rhetoric about claims to territories they dispute with Baghdad's Arab-led government.

Diplomats see the row over oil-producing Kirkuk and surrounding areas as the greatest threat to Iraq's long-term stability as sectarian violence fades, but many Kurds support Barzani's hardline approach against Baghdad, from where Saddam Hussein launched deadly attacks against Kurds in the 1980s.

"Kirkuk is the most important thing to Kurds," said Yunis Mohammed Qader, 39, outside the sweltering oven of his pizza takeaway. "Only Barzani and the KDP-PUK can bring it back."

The Kurd-Arab row has held up critical energy legislation in the national parliament and casts a pall over the government's efforts to secure foreign investment in the oil sector.

Although Kurds have long dreamed of their own state and such rallying cries used to define Kurdish politics, many Kurds now worry more about problems closer to home, like graft.

Corruption

Critics of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) point to widespread official corruption, abuses by security forces, media intimidation and an atmosphere they say stifles dissent.

"They feed on our money. They point to buildings and say it's development, but do you think most Kurds can go in that hotel?", bar worker Haider Abdul said of Kurdish leaders, pointing at a fancy Arbil hotel in the distance.

Our priority is to clean up the system and give it back to the people. The ruling parties haven't put any oversight in place on the region's budget. God knows where all that money goes

Safin Malaqara, head of the Change campaign in Arbil

An alliance hoping to capitalize on disenchantment is the "Change" list, run by independent candidate Noshwan Mustafa.

While the polls are not expected to topple the region's two-party hegemony, "Change" officials hope for up to a third of the 111 seats in parliament, despite what they say is the ruling alliance's use of public funds for party campaigning.

"Our priority is to clean up the system and give it back to the people," said Safin Malaqara, head of the Change campaign in Arbil. "The ruling parties haven't put any oversight in place on the region's budget. God knows where all that money goes."

Sensitive to these criticisms, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, who heads the campaign of the joint KDP-PUK list, has made transparency and accountability a key issue.

Officials from KDP-PUK alliance point out that Kurds are for the most part proud of their relatively prosperous enclave, which has flourished while much of Iraq descended into bloody chaos and insurgency after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

"Kurdistan was a desert, we had nothing. Now look," said Abdilselam Berwari, head of the KDP Political Studies centre. "I won't say we're angels ... but the two parties have brought successes to Kurdistan. The people know that."

Barzani's nephew, Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, will be replaced by a PUK nominee as part of a power-sharing deal between the two parties, which waged civil war in the 1990s.