Indigo

Happily, it looks like Iraqis turned out to vote in exceedingly high numbers despite threat of injury, despite exhortations from clerics to boycott, despite everything that has happened to them in the past two years.

The chairman of the Independent Election Commission of Iraq, Fareed Ayar, said as many as 8 million people turned out to vote, or between 55 percent and 60 percent of those registered to cast ballots. If 8 million turns out to be the final figure, that would represent 57 percent of voters. […] The predicted low turnout in Anbar, a hotspot of Sunni resistance to the American occupation, was exceeded to such an extent that extra voting materials had to be rushed to outlying villages, where long lines were formed at polling stations, Mr. Ayar said.

Hopefully, 2005 will be Iraq’s as 1989 was Germany’s, 1992 the Czech Republic’s.

[via the NY Times]