Iraqis cast ballots in landmark election

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqis voted today to give a "yes" or "no" to a constitution that would define democracy in Iraq, a country once ruled by Saddam Hussein and now sharply divided among its Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities.

The polls opened at 7 a.m., just hours after insurgents sabotaged power lines in the northern part of the country, plunging the Iraqi capital into darkness and cutting off water supplies.

The capital was eerily quiet under clear blue skies this morning. Iraqi soldiers and police ringed polling stations at schools, and driving was banned to stop suicide car bombings by Sunni-led insurgents determined to wreck the vote. Only a few citizens were seen walking to the schools, which were protected by concrete barriers and barbed wire.

But President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafaari were shown live on Al-Iraqiya television voting in a hall in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, where parliament and the U.S. Embassy are based. After putting their paper ballots in white-and-black plastic boxes, both smiled and waved to the public.

"I announce the beginning of the first referendum process in the history of new Iraq, and it is being conducted all over the country in about 6,000 polling stations," Farid Ayar, a top official in the Iraqi Independent Electoral Commission, said in an interview.

The charter — hammered out after months of bitter negotiations — is supported by a Shiite-Kurdish majority but has split Sunni Arab ranks after last-minute amendments designed to win support among the disaffected minority.

After the blackout, government employees working through the night managed to restore electricity in Baghdad before dawn.

The choice of target may suggest that security measures hampered militants from carrying out the sort of devastating bombings against civilians or police that they have unleashed before the vote. Nearly 450 people were killed in the 19 days before the referendum, often by insurgents using suicide car bombs, roadside bombs and drive-by shootings.

Iraqis remain deeply divided over the approximately 140-charter draft constitution they were voting on today. The country's Shiite majority — some 60 percent of its 27 million people — and the Kurds — another 20 percent — support the charter, which provides them with autonomy in the regions where they are concentrated in the north and south.