THE last time that Iraqis went to the polls was in 2002 when they voted 100 per cent for Saddam Hussein, the only candidate on the ballot paper.

They voted again yesterday, millions of them, for a host of candidates, in the first free elections that any but the very oldest could remember. This time, although 35 people were killed by suicide bombers and mortar shells, they defied those who would keep them in thrall.

Initial estimates from the independent electoral commission suggest that around eight million people — roughly 60 per cent of the eligible population — took part in the polls, although it admitted that this was little more than a guess.

That was more than enough for President Bush to declare the vote a resounding success.

“The people of Iraq have firmly rejected the anti-democratic ideology of the terrorists,” he said. “They have refused to be intimidated by the thugs and assassins. The world is hearing the voice of freedom from the centre of the Middle East.”

Tony Blair called the vote a “blow right to the heart of global terrorism” and said: “It was the force of freedom that was felt throughout Iraq today.”

The Prime Minister’s day was marred only by the loss of a British C130 Hercules transport plane northwest of Baghdad. It was unclear last night whether the crash, in which as many as 15 servicemen are feared dead, was an accident or the result of hostile action. The aircraft was flying the 30-mile journey from the capital to a US logistics base in Balad.

The other concern was the apparently low turnout among Sunni voters, which could weaken the mandate of the new national assembly. But throughout the long-oppressed Shia south and Kurdish north, and large parts of Baghdad, Iraqis young and old, male and female, participated in huge numbers in the first multi- party elections since 1953.

The sick, the old, the blind and lame surged to polling centres, sometimes carried, sometimes wheeled in carts by relatives. Many put on their best clothes and handed out sweets, in imitation of the Muslim holiday of Eid, a week ago.

“This is an historic moment for Iraq, a day when Iraqis can hold their heads high because they are challenging the terrorists and starting to write their future with their own hands,” Iyad Allawi, the interim Prime Minister, said.

In the north, a 100-year-old Kurdish woman named Khadija Chalabi came down from the mountains to cast her ballot. “She told us that as long as she’s alive she must vote for the Kurdish people,” said one of her grandsons.

In Baghdad, Samir Hassan, 33, who lost a leg in a terrorist attack, said: “I’d have crawled here if I had to. I don’t want terrorists to kill other Iraqis like they tried to kill me. Today I am voting for peace.”

In the southern city of Basra, women in black abayas queued for up to three hours to vote. People jubilantly waved the ink stain on their index fingers — a device to prevent fraud. “I’m a human being again,” said a Shia man, overcome by tears. “Showing emotion is part of being human. Saddam dehumanised us.”

Only in the Sunni Triangle, northwest of Baghdad, where insurgents still hold sway, did Iraqis stay away en masse. Only 1,400 of the 200,000 residents of Samarra are thought to have voted. Some voting stations failed to open.

However, turnout picked up as voters realised that the huge security measures were largely successful in keeping terrorists at bay. There was a suprisingly high turnout in the northern city of Mosul, where insurgents have been fighting US forces.

Iraqis voted despite a series of attacks designed to derail the election that left 44 dead, nine of them suicide bombers who were carrying explosives on their bodies as cars were banned. One bomber killed seven voters and two policemen outside a polling station in east Baghdad. Voting continued as police cleared his remains.

Another suicide bomber killed four people in the slums of Sadr City, a Shia stronghold. A third entered a polling station in west Baghdad, killing two people. A bomb on a bus taking Sunnis to vote south of Baghdad killed five more.

But the guerrillas who have waged an 18-month war to derail the elections were denied their habitual freedom by a huge lockdown in which city streets were cleared of all traffic except security vehicles.

In the calm, children played football next to Soviet-era Iraqi tanks pressed back into service on the normally traffic-clogged streets. US Humvees blocked many of the capital’s arteries.

The attacks were claimed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader, who has masterminded many of the bloodiest attacks in the country.

“I advise Zarqawi to bury himself, all Iraqis hate him,” an Iraqi army commander said as he voted at a Baghdad polling station. “Can he kill us all?” Iraqis will have to wait up to ten days for the results. The Shia-led United Iraqi Alliance, Dr Allawi’s secular Iraqi List and the coalition two main Kurdish parties are expected to be strongly represented in the new 275-seat assembly.

The assembly will choose a new president and two vice- presidents. They will choose a prime minister, who will select a Cabinet. The assembly will also appoint a committee to draw up a new constitution.

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