Sunday's elections in Iraq were filled with contrasts. You could easily make the case that they were a victory for democracy, with voter turnout estimated at 60 percent. Save for one major caveat: the country's minority Sunni population mostly boycotted the poll, meaning the new government won't be a representative one. And while al-Qaida lieutenant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been promising spectacular election-day terrorist attacks for weeks, they never materialized. Still, at least 36 people died in smaller scale election day bombings and attacks. Unsurprisingly, German papers offer mixed reactions to the election on Monday.

"The insurgents did not manage to halt the election," writes the center-left Sueddeutsche Zeitung. "This piece of good news is thanks to each Iraqi who put his life on the line in order to vote." However, the paper then criticizes United States President George W. Bush's "overhasty" analysis that this is a turning point in Iraq's history. "The election will not improve the Iraqi's everyday situation ... there are still shortages of electricity, water and gas, and, according to Washington's own estimates, the security situation will remain just as bad as it was before the election." The election won't make Iraqis feel sated or secure. The fact that, despite these realities, "so many still risked going to their polling stations documents the will of the people to go from being oppressed subjects to citizens." Still, the election also showed the limits of such an Iraqi democracy. The Sunnis boycotted the election -- not out of fear of bombs but because they knew they stood to gain only 20 percent of the vote. The streets were empty in cities like Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra. "After this election, Iraq will have a democratically legitimate government," the paper concludes, "but it will not have representative leadership. This will offer the extremists a new, broader base from which to attack."

The Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper, majority-owned by the governing Social Democrats, comes out very critically of the elections. "These elections were neither free, fair nor democratic," it writes. "They weren't free because they took place in a state of emergency and under the threat of violence. They weren't fair because the candidates hand-picked by the occupier almost had a TV monopoly. And they weren't democratic because the names of most candidates were kept secret right up to the last minute." The election, it concludes, has confirmed ethnic divisions and will "pave the way for bitter clashes." But the paper doesn't necessarily reflect official government views: German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer greeted the election as a further step toward the "democratization" of Iraq.

The intellectually feisty leftists at Die Tageszeitung also look to Iraq while turning their noses at the White House. "Washington is claiming the election to be a milestone towards the democratization of an entire region, others are still doing all they can to portray the election as proof of America's final failure," it writes. Both are true. "Voters who said this was the 'happiest day' of their lives are just as real as those who stayed away from the polling stations because in their eyes elections under occupation are illegitimate." Ultimately, the success or failure of the elections, it concludes, will ride on whether the Shiite and Kurdish winners can bring the Sunni abstainees on board.

Praise comes, however, from the Financial Times Deutschland, which describes the election as "an historic event" -- especially if you consider that more than 50 percent of the eligible population came out to vote in the region's first free election in decades. "Measured against the disastrous circumstances of the vote, which was overshadowed by threats and attacks (from terrorists), it was a historic result." It also rebuffs those who believe democracy is irreconcilable with the region's cultural traditions. But the election also had its share of problems -- primarily the boycott of Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority population. "The integration of the Sunni minority, which traditionally occupied power, now remains the central requirement of Iraqi domestic policy," it continues. The paper then calls on the West to support this process. "The international community, above all the Europeans, should support the political process which is now beginning as best they can. It is no longer a question of Bush paying the bloody price for his war. It is about the future of the Iraqi people."