IRAQ: Jubilant Iraqi exiles cast their ballots in a "vote for freedom" yesterday and urged their compatriots in Iraq to defy insurgents and do the same.
In the US, Iraqi expatriates defied frigid temperatures and long trips to the polls to enthusiastically cast their votes across the eastern US. "I'm 39, but today, I'm just born," said Yaqoob Al-Awsa, a painter from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who was also celebrating his birthday. "This is the first day for me. I was almost crying."
In Irvine, California, a stream of Iraqis, including older men and women wearing headscarves, went through metal detectors to vote. Talal Ibrahim (52), originally from Baghdad, was the first to cast his ballot to a round of applause from poll workers. "I'm very excited. I'm so happy. I think this is the least thing we can do for Iraq," said Ibrahim, a communications engineer.
More than 280,000 out of one million eligible Iraqis living abroad have registered to vote. Absentee voting in 14 countries will continue until tomorrow, the day the poll is held in Iraq.
Peter Erben, head of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) programme to enable Iraqis abroad to vote, said in Amman, Jordan that the first day "had so far seen beyond 20 per cent of registered voters casting their ballot as a worldwide average".
Lamaa Jamal Talabani (60), who voted in Amman, said: "I have been dreaming of this day to tell my grandchildren that in the first election in the history of Iraq I was the first woman to vote."
In Iran, the largest centre for registered Iraqi voters abroad with about 61,000, queues formed outside a Tehran polling station. Many were women in traditional black chadors. Iranian TV repeatedly broadcast footage of Iraq's top Shi'ite religious authority Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and called on Iraqis to vote for candidates he is thought to back.
"I am voting out of loyalty for my fellow countrymen, for our great Iraq, for those buried in mass graves and for our martyrs," Adel Mijbil Qawqaz said at a polling station in the United Arab Emirates. - Reuters