Live blog: Iraq elections

MEE's live blog of the Iraqi election is wrapping up. 

We will keep you up to date with results as they come in. 

Iraq's Electoral Commission is now reporting that 12 million citizens submitted a vote, which would make it a turnout of over 60 percent.

Figures emerging earlier in the day were far lower, with observers estimating a turnout nearer to 30 percent.

Human Rights Watch issued a statement, warning that ISIL and other radical fighters had committed "attrocious attacks on civilians that likely amount to crimes against humanity." The rights group also blamed the government for its "excessive" response that had been "rife with abuse." 

"Whoever wins the election should be judged on how they work to end the serious human rights violations that plague Iraq, and on whether they govern fairly for all Iraqis, regardless of ethnicity, religion, or sect," said HRW deputy MENA director Joe Stork. 

@Kurdishblogger is reporting celebratory bursts of gunfire in the Kurdish Iraqi city of Suleimaniya as election results begin to roll in:

In an earlier tweet, he expressed concern about bursts of gunfire in the city:

Caricaturist Sara Qaed tweets her cartooning response to today's elections, entitled "Ballot Boxes" 

Iraqi news site al-Sumaria is reporting that early results from today's polls show Maliki's State of Law coalition in the lead.

The report, which quotes "well-informed sources", describes Maliki's lead as "significant".

It does not give details as to which areas these results spring from.

A video recently uploaded to YouTube shows an Iraqi policeman addressing the crowd of police personnel and security forces waiting to vote on their allotted polling day on Monday.

The poem, written by the policeman and recited from memory, urges Iraqis to vote for the candidate who will unite the country, and not to divide their votes along sectarian lines.

Wathiq al-Hashimi, a leading political analyst, answers questions from EuroNews on what may follow today's elections.

The challenges faced today are "more significant than those of 2005 and 2010."

MEE spoke to an Iraqi expat, who complained of procedural difficulties that prevented him from casting his ballot. He told us:

"My experience with the Iraqi election procedure  was not good this time. The 'Election Commission' had asked for various documents, some of which had to be original Iraqi documents as well as various supporting documents. These details were not made available to us before the election dates and the documents are difficult to obtain outside Iraq. I was unable to cast my vote because I did not have some of the documents. They also decided that the voting would be on Sunday 27th April and Monday 28th April which is a working day for many people – making it difficult to go to the polling station."

The UN estimates that around 2 million Iraqis are currently living outside the country. The majority of these are thought to be living in Jordan and Syria.

According to Iraq's Electoral Commission, polling stations have been set up in almost 60 cities worldwide. 

A number of voters in Gulf countries said they were unable to vote for reasons that were not made clear, according to reports in al-Sharq al-Awsat.

Salam Anwar, an Iraqi living in Qatar, said: “We came this morning and queued in the sun with women and children and we were not allowed to vote.”

Meanwhile, hundreds of the estimated 200,000 Iraqis resident in Jordan also went to polling stations in the Kingdom on Sunday, according to Reuters. 

Polls in Iraq will be closing in 5 minutes at 6pm local time. 

There have been conflicting reports as to voter turn-out so far, with some predicting a total of around 36 percent. 

With the last citizens still registering their votes, an Iraqi election monitoring organisation has spoken of "violations" during the ballot.

"Observers from our organization have registered a number of election violations," Ali al-Dejili, head ofIraqi election monitoring NGO Tammuz, told Anadolu Agency.

He said violations had included campaigning by candidates outside polling stations and encouraging voters to select specific lists outside polling stations.

Al-Dejili said the irregularities had been registered in a number of provinces, including the western Anbar province, the northern Nineveh province and some southern provinces.

He also said that voter turnout has risen throughout the day, after being recorded at around 20 percent at midday. 

Translation: The process of sorting and counting votes begins in al-Nasiriyya, #Iraq

From the ground: images of Baghdad's streets empty of traffic amid election-day violence

Polls have now closed. However, Ahl al-Madina, a prominent news programme, tweeted that an hour ago people were still flocking to the polling booths in Mosul.

They posted a picture of prospective voters queuing up to cast their ballots, 10 minutes before the polls closed.

Translation: Citizens continue flocking to polling stations in Mosul, #Iraq

US Secretary of State praised millions of Iraqi voters for going to the polls today, declaring that they had acted "heroically" in the face of militant threats.

"With ink-stained thumbs, Iraqi voters sent a powerful rebuke to the violent extremists who have tried to thwart democratic progress and sow discord in Iraq and throughout the region," Kerry said in a statement.

 

Polls are now closed across Iraq, after a day of voting that saw the ballot become the subject of violent attacks. 

There had been calls for the vote to be extended, amid concerns that all those who wanted to take part were not able to.

 However, these calls have not been heeded, and the last chance to vote in the country's first parliamentary elections since US withdrawal has now elapsed.

Reporter Laura Cesaretti returned from Iraqi Kurdistan earlier this week and told us: 

Due to the parliamentary elections, in all of Iraq and the Kurdish Regional Autonomy, the authorities have expanded security measures in order to prevent a decrease in voter turnout. Flights at Erbil International Airport were closed from the 28th of April until 6pm today causing not minor inconvenience for people travelling abroad. Also for those who travelled by land, traffic between one city to another was extremely regulated and tight. On Monday at the Ibrahim Khalid border, the crossing point between the Iraq Kurdistan Region and Turkey, people were left waiting for more than 7 hours to complete the security checks. “Why do you not want to vote?” immigration police asked all Iraqis citizens who were trying to exit the country. According to many travellers, although Iraqi’s legislation allows people with two IDs to vote even in Istanbul or Ankara, the procedure for the exit stamp was delayed in order to discourage people from voting abroad. “They will never let us go”, said a couple heading to Turkey on holiday. “That is why they keep us waiting here - added Ashraf, a 55 year-old businessman travelling to Urfa. “They hope we get tired and we go back home”. Despite the waiting, all 48 people on the bus managed to enter Turkey in the end. However, many of them were all but excited about their participation in the democratic process and disenchanted about the outcome of the election.