Iraqi Expatriates Cast Their Votes

Dec. 14, 2005 — -- From Australia to Detroit, Iraqis living outside their country have been lining up to vote prior to Thursday's balloting in their home country to elect a 275-member National Assembly.

In 15 countries, including the United States, there are 1.5 million expatriate Iraqis eligible to vote. The 15 were chosen to host the vote because they have the largest concentration of Iraqis.

The voting began Tuesday and started first in Australia, where as many as 20,000 registered Iraqi voters live. Next was Europe and the Middle East, where campaign posters dotted polling stations from which Iraqis left with ink-stained fingers and expressions of satisfaction.

"I am very happy," said Soran Abul-Aziz in Denmark after casting his vote, choosing from 11,000 candidates. "I hope Iraq soon will become a democratic country like Denmark."

Abul-Aziz had spent the night outside the polling station in a sleeping bag because he wanted to be the first to vote.

In Warsaw, Poland, Bernadet Shukri, who fled Baghdad three years ago before the American invasion, left her polling station draped in an Iraqi flag. "Before, life was very difficult in Iraq," she said, "but now things are beginning to work.

In London, campaign posters seemed to favor Ayad Allawi, a former prime minister, and deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, both Shiite Muslims.

"I hope this leads to democracy ... and freedom," said Mawaheb Mohammed, a Shiite from southern Iraq, after voting in London.

In Syria, where there had been heavy campaigning in newspapers and on the radio, thousands of Iraqis thronged polling stations.

"I want to vote," said Talal Shawkat, who has lived in Damascus for 18 months, "because I see the process as free and honest."

In the United States, Iraqi expatriate voting is expected to number in the tens of thousands. Most voters ase concentrated in California, Illinois, Michigan, Virginia and Tennessee.

At a Dearborn, Mich., polling station, truck driver Akeel AlMosawi spoke excitedly after voting. He had arrived 30 minutes early at the banquet hall serving as a polling station. "We have to pick good people who we trust to take care of Iraq," he said.

Despite their political differences, Iraqis in the United States seemed united in the desire to vote in the country's second free election in decades. Many drove long distances.

After voting in Dearborn, Fadel Al Zuad, 39, told The Detroit Free Press, "This will destroy terrorism in Iraq. This is the main reason we come here."

Al Zuad fled Iraq in 1991 after the first Gulf War when Saddam Hussein brutally crushed the uprising of Shiite Muslims.

In the Detroit area alone, 9,000 Iraqis are expected to vote before polls close tomorrow.