Final appeals to Iraq's voters have gone out from the country's politicians, as the country prepares to head for its second post-invasion election on Sunday.
The election will shape the government for the next four years, and security in the country is high: The Al Jazeera news network reported that hundreds of thousands of police and soldiers have deployed across Iraq, while travel between regions has been restricted.
A string of blasts killed 14 and injured dozens on Thursday.
Despite the countless numbers of candidates, incumbent President Jalal Talabani says he is confident of retaining his position.
Religious leaders urge people to vote
News that makes sense
Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.
Religious leaders have ordered Iraqis to vote to safeguard the war-wracked nation's fledgling democracy and to ensure the ballot is unhindered by fraud - despite threats of attack from Al-Qaeda linked islamic militants.
The call came on Friday as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told a London inquiry into the 2003 invasion to oust Saddam Hussein the move to go to war was "the right decision" despite widespread protests against it.
The final days of the campaign for Sunday's poll, the second since Saddam fell in the US-led invasion, have been rocked by a series of suicide bombings that left dozens dead.
Some of the 6200 candidates from across Iraq's complex religious and ethnic spectrum made media appearances at the end of a campaign in which public meetings and street electioneering were largely absent.
Friday prayers politicised
Religious leaders used Friday prayers to tell their followers they must vote.
"You must go to the voting centres because it is your duty," said Sheikh Abdulrahman al-Jorani, Sunni imam of the Al-Hai mosque in the central city of Baquba, where 33 people were killed in three suicide attacks on Wednesday.
"Even if you don't want to vote, go to the voting centres to destroy your electoral papers so they cannot be forged by others fraudulently."
Overseas voters to make mark
The appeals for strong voter turnout came as more than one million Iraqis living abroad began voting in an election where Sunnis are expected to cast ballots in large numbers, in stark contrast to their 2005 boycott of the poll.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the Shi'ite head of the State of Law Alliance who this week boasted he was "certain" of victory, was due to give a news conference later on Friday in a final push to win support.
Also competing with Maliki for the top job are former deputy premier Ahmed Chalabi, who was once favoured but is now loathed by Washington, Shi'ite Vice President Adel Abdel Mahdi and Finance Minister Baqer Jaber Solagh.
Iraq's fragmented political scene virtually ensures that no single party will emerge with the 163 seats needed to form a government on its own and the ensuing horse-trading to form a governing coalition is likely to be protracted.
An estimated 1.4 million Iraqis from the war-shattered country's diaspora began to cast their votes on Friday in 80 cities in 16 different countries.
Ahmed Fuad, a 22-year-old student, said as he emerged from a polling station in Amman in neighbouring Jordan that he backed Shi'ite former premier Iyad Allawi, whose secular Iraqiya list has strong support in Sunni areas.
"I hope the situation will improve there (in Iraq) so we can go back to our country. We are fed up with homesickness," said Fuad.
The US military sees Sunday's poll as a crucial precursor to withdrawing its combat troops in August and said it would continue to provide Iraqi security forces with intelligence, logistical and air support for the election.
