A first tranche of some 600,000 voters goes to the polls on Wednesday in provincial elections in Iraq. Among them are police officers and soldiers, who will have some 500 polling stations at their disposal. The rest of the country votes on Saturday. The government has spoken of its fears of voter fraud and has teamed up with the United Nations to try to prevent such irregularities. So far, the campaign has been largely low key with parties refraining from staging mass rallies for fear of attacks by armed radicals. The offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Mo’sul in northern Iraq were attacked on Tuesday. Four Iraqi soldiers were killed and five wounded when a car packed with explosives rammed a checkpoint outside the building.