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BAGHDAD (Agencies)

Iraqis on Sunday started voting in their war-shattered nation's second parliamentary election since the U.S.-led overthrow of dictator Saddam Hussein, as mortars and bombs rocked Baghdad, leaving five people dead.

The election, Iraq's second for a full-term parliament since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, is viewed as pivotal as the country tries to end sectarian violence and set the stage for stability and economic growth ahead of a U.S. withdrawal by end-2011.

A total of 10 mortar blasts and four bombs hit the Iraqi capital as polling stations opened, said an interior ministry official.

Four of the mortars landed in the secure "Green Zone" where foreign diplomats and several government ministries are based, killing at least one person and wounding nine others, the official said.

Another four people were killed and when an explosion destroyed a residential building in the capital.

Five blasts rocked voting stations in Baquba, 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of the capital, as the election, which al-Qaeda has threatened to sabotage, got under way, security officials said.

The attacks come despite a massive security operation in place for Sunday's voting, with 200,000 police and soldiers deployed in Baghdad alone.

Large turnout expected

Sunni Arabs are expected to turn out in force at voting centers, in stark contrast to 2005 when they boycotted nationwide polls in protest at the rise to power of the nation's long-oppressed Shiite majority.

That boycott deepened the sectarian divide and heightened unrest which killed tens of thousands of Iraqis in the aftermath of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and which has only eased in the past two years.

The election will usher in a government tasked with tackling a multitude of problems, including still high levels of violence, an economy in tatters and state ministries mired in a culture of endemic corruption.

Seven years after the war, much of Baghdad remains bomb damaged, most homes receive only a few hours of mains electricity a day and lack clean drinking water, and a quarter of the Iraqi population is illiterate.

Northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, which is almost free of violent attacks and whose economy is booming, is one of the country's few bright spots.

Iraq has vast oil deposits and in recent months has signed 10 massive deals with foreign companies, but income will take years to flow into government coffers and for the moment much of the population remains poor.

Stiff competition

The United States hopes the election will bolster Iraq's fledgling democracy, make it a beacon in a region where free and fair elections are the exception, and pave the way to a smooth pullout of American troops.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the Shiite 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.

Maliki, 59, who heads a religious coalition with a secular outlook that includes several Sunni tribal sheikhs, on Wednesday said he was "certain" of poll victory.

But he is facing stiff competition.

His rivals include Iyad Allawi, a Shiite 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 favored but now loathed by Washington; Adel Abdel Mahdi, the country's Shiite vice president; and Baqer Jaber Solagh, the finance minister.

Chalabi, Mahdi and Solagh all represent the Iraq National Alliance, the main Shiite religious list.

Under the Iraqi electoral system no one party will emerge with the 163 seats needed to form a government on their own and the ensuing horse-trading to form a governing coalition could take months.

The vote is seen as a pivotal test of democracy less than six months before U.S. combat troops quit the country ahead of a complete withdrawal from Iraq by the end of 2011.

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