From: Zainab Shakir, Deputy Chief of Party, Baghdad

On the 31st of January Iraqi people went to elect their new provincial council members. My son is 18 and it is his first participation in a democratic electoral process. He went with a group of young people to the polling station to cast their votes. He mentioned that the security was very good around the polling stations, and the IHEC staff were all young and very helpful. He was very happy to be part of this event and he voted for the "Civilians" list (a coalition of communist and democrat parties). I asked him why he chose this list, and he said, "First, they are not religious so they don't represent Sunni or Shi'a, and I like their statement." I asked him for their statement and he brought me a piece of paper written by Hamed Majed, the head of the coalition. I read it and then asked what he liked about this paper. He answered me in very straight words: it is simple and understandable.

When I read that statement, I could tell what these young people find: Yes, it is written in an educated level of Arabic language, but in very simple, meaningful words. It shows the party's future programs and how they will address people's needs. No religious symbols or statements, but rather, what people talk about to each other.

I also observed a low number of people in attendance at my polling station. In my district, the neighborhood has been split into three polling stations, rather than one (as it was in 2005). They split the district according to the jurisdiction of food ration distribution centers. One has to give the name and number of one's ration card supplier at the polling station to make sure they are registered at that particular station. Then, the staff check the name on the voter registration list and direct the voter to a certain room. This is better than the previous election, in which one could find one's name in more than one voting room.

Security was very good, No mobile phones were allowed inside the polling stations. I did not see any independent observers within my polling stations except IHEC people. I saw many more men than women voting. Only 40% of eligible voters in Baghdad went to the polling stations -- one of the lowest percentages among other provinces.

Abd Al-Aziz didn't get that much support even in the south of the country. Al-Maliki as we heard won Basra and he has more voters support putting in mind as we heard that most of the military and police voted for him.

We heard a story from Diwaniya, in which people didn't know for whom to vote, so they opened the Quran (Holy Book) to a random page, and the name Hameed Majeed appeared, which means "thanking God." So they went for the communist party, as the head of that party list's name is Hameed Majeed.