ARBIL, Iraq: Iraqis went to polls on Saturday in the Kurdish regional parliamentary and presidential elections that will determine the leadership of the country's Kurdish region.

Voting started at 8:00 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) and will end at 6:00 p.m. (1500 GMT).

A Kurdish Iraqi resident casts his vote at a polling station in Sulaimaniya, 260 km (160 miles) northeast of Baghdad July 25, 2009. [Agencies]

About 2.5 million eligible voters in the three northern provinces -- Arbil, Sulaimaniyah and Duhuk -- and some other Kurds outside the region will elect their 111-seat parliament and next president.

The two main Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan headed by Iraqi President Jalal

Talabani, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party headed by regional government president Masoud Barzani, are running for the elections in a coalition, which observers believe will face challenges from new opposition alliances.

Saturday's voting came six months after provincial elections have been held in the majority of Iraq, and at a time when the US military is decreasing its troops in a plan to pull all soldiers out of Iraq no later than 2011.