Iraqis have defied waves of bomb, mortar and rocket attacks that killed 38 people to turn out in huge numbers to vote in elections seen as a test of the war-shattered state's fragile democracy.
Polls closed at the end of a day that saw long queues at polling stations in Baghdad, in Sunni towns that mostly boycotted the 2005 parliamentary vote, and in other centres across the conflict-ridden country.
Partial results were not due until later this week, with full results expected on March 18, according to the UN.
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But most observers said it would take at least a couple of months of political horsetrading before a new government was formed as no political bloc was set to emerge dominant from the vote.
Violence in Baghdad
The capital bore the brunt of Sunday's violence, with about 70 mortars raining down on mostly Sunni areas as people voted in the second parliamentary ballot since US-led forces ousted dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.
The cities of Fallujah, Baquba, Samarra and several other areas were also hit by mortar rounds or bombs, many of them exploding near polling stations.
An al-Qaeda group, which sees the election as validating the Shi'ite-led government and the US occupation, warned on Friday that anyone voting ran the risk of being attacked, heightening an already tense security situation.
Baghdad's streets were all but deserted of vehicles bar those ferrying thousands of police and soldiers, as people journeyed on foot to polling stations across the capital.
Huge police turnout
The violence, which came despite 200,000 police and soldiers deployed in Baghdad and hundreds of thousands more across the country of around 30 million citizens, killed 38 people and wounded 110, an interior ministry official said.
Twenty-five of the dead perished when a rocket flattened a residential building in the north of the capital, and all the other deaths were in or near the city.
PM undeterred by attacks
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the attacks "are only noise to impress voters but Iraqis are a people who love challenges and you will see that this will not damage their morale."
Sunni Arabs boycotted nationwide polls in 2005 in protest at the rise to power of the nation's long-oppressed Shi'ite majority.
Maliki, the Shi'ite head of the State of Law Alliance, is bidding to become the first Iraqi voted back into office at the will of the people who, for decades, had no choice but Saddam's Baath Party.
His rivals include Iyad Allawi, a Shi'ite former prime minister who heads the Iraqiya list, a rival secular coalition that has strong support in Sunni areas.
Also seeking the top job are Ahmed Chalabi, a former deputy premier once favoured but now loathed by Washington; Adel Abdel Mahdi, the country's Shi'ite vice president; and Baqer Jaber Solagh, the finance minister.
Chalabi, Mahdi and Solagh all represent the Iraq National Alliance, the main Shi'ite religious list.
