Iraqis are today electing 275 members of a “transitional national assembly” picked from more than 100 party lists grouping like-minded factions. They will also elect administrations in the 18 provinces. A third poll will determine a government for the Kurds in the north.

Anyone over the age of 18 with Iraqi citizenship is eligible to vote and there are 28,000 voting booths in 5,300 polling centres. The ballot for expatriate Iraqis opened on Friday and will last until later today.

Counting the votes could take as long as a week. The independent electoral commission is expected to take until about February 20 before it certifies the result.

The assembly is the equivalent of our parliament. When it gathers on February 15 its first job will be to elect a president and two deputies. They will appoint a prime minister, who will form a cabinet. The assembly will then vote to approve the new government. The process could go on until early April. Meanwhile, the interim government will continue in office.

Drafting an Iraqi constitution is the other big job of the national assembly. It must resolve thorny issues such as the status of the Kurdish autonomous region, the role of women and the position of Islam in secular law.

The constitution must be drafted by August 15 and a referendum on it must be held by October 15. It must not be rejected by two-thirds of the voters in any three provinces.

Once the constitution is in place there will be a second general election, if all goes according to the timetable, on December 15, to establish a national assembly. The whole process could take another year if any of the deadlines are not met. For the moment, the formation of Iraq’s first genuinely democratic, post-Saddam Hussein government is still a distant dream.

The country’s dire security situation has meant that the location of most polling stations has remained secret. Extra police have been deployed, a three-day holiday has been declared and the use of civilian vehicles has been banned.

Those most determined to make the risky journey to the polling stations are the majority Shi’ites, who look set to dominate the new parliament. Those Sunnis voting — often in the areas most plagued by violence — fear that they are effectively being disenfranchised. The timing of the election is so unpopular with them that their main party pulled out of the contest in December.

For the coalition struggling to help to run Iraq, today’s poll is a vital first step in any exit strategy: only with a fully constitutional government in place can the coalition realistically pull its troops out.

Postponing the election because of security fears was therefore unthinkable and Washington has spent an estimated £140m setting up the thousands of polling stations.

Despite the evident dangers, there are said to be as many as 120 international monitors in Iraq to help to supervise the election.

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