Iraqi election turnout 62.4 percent: electoral commission

BAGHDAD, March 8 (Xinhua) -- The Independent High Electoral Commission of Iraq (IHEC) said Monday that the turnout in the country's parliamentary elections was 62.4 percent.

"The turnout of the voters nationwide reached 62.4 percent," Hamdiyah al-Hussieni, a commission member told reporters in a news conference.

Al-Hussieni said that the highest turnout was in the Kurdish province of Duhuk in northern Iraq with 80 percent and the lowest turnout was in Maysan province in southern the country with 50 percent.

On Sunday, more than 18 million Iraqis voters cast their ballots in some 8,920 polling centers across the country to vote for the 325-seat Iraqi Council of Representatives out of some 6, 300 candidates.

In the 2005 parliamentary elections, the voters turnout was 59 percent as Sunni Arabs boycotted the polls because of the U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.