Iraq provincial elections

Baghdad: Election posters dot the city. Millions of Iraqis are expected to go to the polls on Saturday to elect 440 candidates to fill the provincial council seats. The elections will be held in 14 out of 18 provinces. Elections in Kirkuk and the Kurdish provinces will be held later Photograph: Getty

Ramadi: The vice-president, Tariq al-Hashemi (r), addresses a crowd along with the governor of Ramadi, Mamoun Sami Rashid. Behind them is a poster of Sheikh Amir Ali al-Sulaiman, a Sunni Arab candidate. The Sunni Arab sheikhs of Anbar province are hotly contesting the seats Photograph: Stringer/Reuters

Baghdad: New police academy recuits march out ready for the elections Photograph: Khalid Mohammed/AP

Baghdad: An Iraqi soldier stands guard outside a polling centre Photograph: Khalid Mohammed/AP

Najaf: Iraqi soldiers display ink-stained fingers after casting their votes. The polls opened on Wednesday for members of the Iraqi security forces, prisoners and hospital patients Photograph: Alaa Al-marjani/AP

Baghdad: More voting evidence Photograph: Thaier Al-sudani/Reuters

Baghdad: A member of the security forces casts his vote in the city's fortified Green Zone. The election is the first in Iraq since 2005, and holding it peacefully will be a test of the country's tenuous stability as it emerges from years of war Photograph: Stringer/iraq/Reuters

Baghdad: A hospital patient votes early Photograph: Mohammed Jalil/EPA

Baghdad, Iraq: The UN special representative in Iraq, Staffan de Mistura, shares a joke with a soldier Photograph: Stringer/Reuters

Basra: An electoral worker seals a ballot box after closing an early-voting polling station Photograph: Atef Hassan/Reuters

Basra: Electoral workers tally early votes Photograph: Atef Hassan/Reuters

Basra: A British soldier joins an Iraqi army patrol close to a polling station Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty

Mosul: An American soldier stands guard in Iraq's most violent province Photograph: Erik De Castro/Reuters