Iraqi Kurds voted on Saturday in elections expected to keep President Masoud Barzani in power in Kurdistan but unlikely to erase voter concerns about corruption or end a bitter feud with Baghdad over land and oil. After the closing of polls ballots will be flown to Baghdad for tallying. The official count is expected to take at least two-three days if there are no challenges. The people of the relatively peaceful enclave will elect a president directly this time, unlike 2005 polls that selected a parliament alone, and former guerrilla leader Barzani looks certain to defeat his five competitors. Barzani's Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Democratic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the region's most powerful parties, will run for seats on a joint list against 23 alliances of smaller parties. As the poll drew near, Barzani and other Kurdish leaders churned out fiery rhetoric about claims to territories they contest with Baghdad's Arab-led government. Diplomats see the row over oil-producing Kirkuk and other disputed areas as a major threat to Iraq's long-term stability as sectarian violence fades, but many Kurds support Barzani's hardline approach against Baghdad, from where Saddam Hussein launched deadly attacks against Kurds in the 1980s. “I am hoping for a more effective parliament,” said Mohammed Salar, 60, a government employee in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya, “And a return of our ransacked land”. The Kurd-Arab row has held up critical energy legislation in the national parliament and complicates government efforts to secure foreign investment in the important oil sector. Barzani, wearing a red turban and traditional Kurdish baggy trousers, held up a purple finger after voting in Salahuddin, where he lives on a mountaintop enclave near the capital Arbil. He defended Kurdish insistence on steps laid out in Iraq's 2005 constitution for settling control of Kirkuk, an uneasy mix of Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs, even though Arab politicians and even the United Nations have backed away from that plan. “I will never compromise on Kirkuk,” he said after voting. Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, the president's nephew, signalled that Kurdish leaders might be able to take a different tack once elections were behind them. “We hope after the election we will be able to sit down at the negotiating table with Baghdad and resolve the issue of Kirkuk ... We as Kurds are willing to show flexibility.” Although Kurds have long dreamed of their own state and such rallying cries used to define Kurdish politics, many Kurds now worry more about problems closer to home, like graft. Critics of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) accuse it of widespread official corruption, abuses by security forces, media intimidation and an atmosphere that stifles dissent. An alliance hoping to capitalise on disenchantment is the Change list, run by independent candidate Noshwan Mustafa.
