Millions of Iraqis had been warned that if they went to polling stations yesterday, their “blood would wash the streets”. They voted anyway. In Baghdad, one terror group boasted of having 400 volunteers for suicide bombing missions. Yet turnout in the capital was far higher than expected. Everyone knew the price of voting would be an ink-blackened forefinger that would prevent them voting twice — but could also have invited an assassin’s bullet. It was a price they paid.

The great question to be answered by Iraq’s first free election in half a century was not who won but how many people voted. The answer must be: enough. Even if official tallies by the country’s new electoral commission prove to have been optimistic, the final turnout appears likely to exceed by some margin the 50 per cent figure widely seen as vital for legitimacy. Against odds sometimes seemed insuperable, Iraq has now held the largest free election in its region’s history.

The bloodbath that the insurgents promised failed to materialise. Thanks to the unprecedented vigilance of both Iraqi and coalition forces, fewer than 1 per cent of polling stations were hit. Even so, the intimidation by jihadist and Baathist terror groups was real and nationwide, and at least 35 voters died in suicide bombings from Mosul to Baghdad. In the light of such figures, yesterday’s high turnout is only more remarkable. Defying not only the violence of thugs but also the condescension of Western critics determined to undermine the election’s significance, eight million Iraqis risked their lives to vote. Their bravery is a lesson to all who take their own freedoms for granted and offer “cultural” reasons why others may somehow not be ready for them.

Those critics who, having opposed the war, reflexively opposed the election as well, will note the irony of curfews, banned car use and repeated security checks imposed by armed forces in the name of liberty. This election was indeed unique, and far from perfect. When security is moot, so is the question of whether real power is being handed to the winner. For security reasons there were no candidates’ names or faces on the ballot papers; only a list of more than 100 parties, among which none-too-transparent negotiations are already under way to form a Shia-dominated coalition that must not only draft a new constitution before a referendum in October, but also run the country until fresh elections when that constitution comes into force two months later.

Yet Iraq’s voters have unequivocally put their faith in the representative assembly that will choose successors to Iyad Allawi’s interim Government. That assembly’s responsibilities can hardly be overstated. Nor can the new government’s challenges, chief among them winning the support of moderate Sunnis whether or not they voted. Attacks by the Sunni-dominated insurgency will doubtless continue, but it can and must be marginalised by ensuring legitimate Sunni interests are adequately represented in government. The alternative of powersharing by larger Shia and Kurdish blocs at the expense of the Sunnis could still lead to full-blown civil war.

History has yet to rule on the net effect on global security of ousting Saddam Hussein. But this much is clear: Yesterday’s election would not have happened were he still in power. It gave cause for celebration in most of Iraq, and should do so everywhere.