LGF - The Powerful Lure of Democracy
Iraqis want to vote: Joyful Iraqi Exiles Vote in Landmark Election.
AMMAN (Reuters) - Jubilant Iraqi exiles cast their ballots in a “vote for freedom” on Friday and urged their compatriots in Iraq to defy insurgents and do the same.
In the United States, Iraqi expatriates defied frigid temperatures and long trips to the polls to enthusiastically cast their votes across the eastern United States.
“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 ... This is the start of a stable 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 till Sunday, the day the poll is held in Iraq.
Let me emphasize that; Iraqis really want to vote: Man drives 14 hours to vote in Iraqi election. (Hat tip: All and Sundry.)
CALGARY - An Iraqi-Canadian man from Winnipeg drove 14 hours to Calgary this week to cast a ballot in his homeland’s general election.
The polling station in Calgary is one of only three in Canada — the other two are in Ontario.
Hasan al-Hakim says it’s important to have a voice in what happens in Iraq. He says he’s spent hours trying to convince family who still live in the country — who have faced threats to keep them from voting — how important it is they are heard.
“It’s fighting for life. That is the future,” al-Hakim says.
Suzan Abdullah, who came to the polling station Friday with her mother Zulikha Ahmed, says neither of them expected to ever be able to vote in an Iraqi election.
“It came to a point where we had to climb mountains to run away from him,” Ahmed says of deposed leader Saddam Hussein, with Abdullah translating.
“To have this point, where we’re able to vote and have the happiness as we do in Canada, it means a great deal to all of us,” Abdullah adds. |
