“Though the streets looked quiet from early morning and through the day due to a ban on non-official vehicles, a steady stream of Iraqis braved high temperatures to walk to their local polling stations and cast their votes.
An official turnout figure has not yet been released but election officials told Al Jazeera it could be as high as 58 percent.
“People were very enthusiastic for this election,” Ola Kamal, a 54-year-old doctor, told Al Jazeera at a polling station in the Yarmuk neighbourhood in west Baghdad. “They came out for change. You saw handicapped people, old people, out in the hot weather. That shows how eager people were.””
