An Iraqi policeman proudly displays his ink-stained finger on the streets of Najaf Province, March 4, indicating he has voted in the special-needs election process. The early voting allowed security personnel and others to vote prior to the regular parliamentary elections scheduled on 7 March. Photo credit: US Army

Millions of Iraqis turned out to vote yesterday, despite the widespread attacks that claimed more than 38 lives in Baghdad alone. Yesterday’s parliamentary election, the second nationwide election since the Iraq War and 2003 Invasion, was an incredibly important test of Iraq’s democracy, not the least because this is the democracy that America is leaving it.

Even as the votes are being counted, already nations and newspapers are congratulating the people of Iraq for their courage during the historic vote. The Times, in a leading editorial today, wrote that this election exemplified the tensions in Iraq: While the election became a focal point for insurgent violence, it also became a moment of defiance for the Iraqi people, who turned out in droves to ink their fingers and cast their ballots.

Both The Times and The Telegraph agree: This vote was historic and it was impressive that so many Iraqis remained undaunted by mortar fire and bombings, however, democracy in Iraq still has a long way to go. “The challenge facing Iraq’s squabbling politicians today is to form a government which can hold together the country’s Shia, Sunni and Kurdish components and lay the foundation for the prosperity promised by huge oil and gas reserves,” The Telegraph wrote in its leading editorial today. “Responsibility is passing from occupier to indigenous authority. Iraq’s politicians now have to prove themselves worthy of the new mandate granted them by a courageous electorate.”

Robert Fisk writing in The Independent today, however, takes a rather dim view of the election and Iraq’s “democracy” whilst still occupied by Western troops: “Thus yesterday’s election day in Iraq does not represent further proof of the values of our Western democracies. It does mean that a courageous people still believes that the system under which it is voting will honour its wishes,” he wrote. “As so often in the past, however, the election is more likely – under our benevolent eye – to enshrine the very sectarianism which Saddam once used so ruthlessly to enslave his people.”

The UK’s Foreign Office also ran a really interesting report today from five British election monitors working over the weekend on the Iraq elections in very different parts of Iraq.

Turnout for the election was around 55 to 60 percent of registered voters and the election authorities says it may be several days before all the votes can be counted.