Iraqi Exiles Say No to Saddam

Oct. 15 -- The last time Ramadhan al-Badran publicly opposed Saddam Hussein was with a gun in the reed-filled marshes along the Tigris River in southern Iraq, where he heroically, but hopelessly, attempted to resist the Iraqi army. This time, he's taken to the ballot.

A resistance fighter in the doomed Shiite uprising in southern Iraq after the Gulf War, al-Badran was in Washington over the weekend to "vote out" Saddam in a symbolic, long-distance participation in today's real referendum on the Iraqi presidency.

After weeks of a colorful, state-sponsored campaign urging Iraqis to "show their love" for their president on Oct. 15, millions of Iraqi citizens today are expected to cast their ballots in a referendum to endorse Saddam for another seven-year term.

But in a number of cities across the United States and Europe, Iraqi exiles are attempting to show their love for "real democracy" in mock referendums to say "no" to Saddam.

A resident of Orange County, Calif., 37-year-old al-Badran was so enthused about the opportunity to express his opposition to the Iraqi dictator, he brought his wife and kids — including his 5-day-old son — along with him to Washington.

Ousting the strongman who has ruled Iraq for the past 23 years is not that easy of course, and al-Badran isn't kidding himself. But thousands of miles away from his home city of Basra in southern Iraq, al-Badran insists he's only doing his bit.

"It is symbolic of course, we don't actually expect to oust Saddam," he says. "It's just that we are a part of Iraqi society and we've all been hurt by him, one way or another. And today is a different time. It's the first time Iraqis can see some attention being paid to them by the international community, and we are just trying to demonstrate our support."

Organized by a coalition of Iraqi human rights groups and pro-democracy campaigners, the mock referendum saw Iraqi exiles in five American and eight European cities set up mock voting boxes to collect ballots.

By Sunday night, out of a total of 2,152 mock votes cast in the United States, 2,129 voted "no" to Saddam, 19 put in a "yes" vote and four had no opinion. Iraqi exiles who could not make it to the mock referendum voted electronically at the Web site www.notosaddam.com.

‘It’s a Joke’

Back in Iraq, the results of the referendum are expected to be starkly different. In the last referendum on the Iraqi presidency, held in 1995 — a poll that had no opposing candidates or independent observers — Saddam won 99.96 percent of the vote.

Iraqi exiles, however, dismiss such results. "It's a joke," says Ala Fa'ik, an Iraqi-American who helped organized the protest vote in Detroit over the weekend. "Everybody has to go out and vote for him. You don't have a choice — or your rations are canceled."