The 2005 election: A local Fallujahan shows he made his mark toward a new democratic society by voting in the National Election in Fallujah, Iraq. Photo credit: Staff Sgt. Ronna M. Weyland

At least 12 people were killed and another 57 injured today in a series of bombing attacks in Baghdad aimed at disrupting Iraq’s parliamentary election as tens of thousands of Iraqi security personnel, soldiers, and police officers headed to the polls to vote early, ahead of Sunday’s nationwide election.

The New York Times reported today that the polls opened early to allow security personnel time to vote before protecting the polls on Sunday. Two suicide bombers detonated their weapons at two different schools acting as polling stations, killing seven soldiers and injuring 35 people. Another bomb was detonated at a school, also a polling station, but one that was not being used for early voting. None of the schools were in session as Iraq’s government declared a holiday from Thursday to Sunday.

The BBC World Service reported this afternoon that a fourth bomb has also detonated near a roadside market.

The New York Times reported that while the bombings revealed “gaps in security”, a “sense of defiance” permeated the streets. The Christian Science Monitor reported that the bombings show that Al Qaeda is still active in the region.

This vote is one of the most important the young democracy has yet held, but even before today’s bombings, the election has been marred by violence, instability, and accusations of sectarian politics. After postponing the election for several months, the Iraqi government further angered disenfranchised Sunni Muslims by banning more than 500 candidates – from both Shia and Sunni sects, although more Sunnis – for election on the grounds that they may have ties to Saddam Hussein’s outlawed Ba’ath Party.

Zalmay Khalilzad in the Christian Science Monitor characterized the Iraq election as a “major test of Iraq’s democratic experiment” yesterday: “The question is whether Iraqis will advance further by capitalizing on hard-earned progress and embrace issue-based political competition, or whether the country will regress toward the earlier pattern of sectarianism and violent political competition.”

But some observers remain hopeful that the violence and controversy around this election are just the birthing pains of a full-fledged, though nascent, democracy. Tunku Varadarajan, over at The Daily Beast, wrote yesterday – before today’s bombings – “Now, having seen democracy at close quarters, and having counted the cost of their self-inflicted political wounds, they are in no doubt about the importance of participation. This is why—no matter what happens in this election—Iraq will not slip back into civil war as it did after the 2005 election. Iraqis have learned that war will not yield anything but bitter fruit in a democracy.”

The BBC World Service also reported this afternoon that this election year has seen some exceptional voter education and outreach and that despite the violence, Iraqis are still turning out. Moreover, it’s a fully Iraqi-run election, an important step for a country that has been propped up in part by the United Nations and America.

Another issue facing Iraq now, as we approach the seventh anniversary of the Iraq Invation, is the planned drawdown of American troops from the country, a move that some observers call fool-hardy and dangerous.