AMMAN,
January 25 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – “Don’t lose
this historic opportunity to join together as Iraqis living abroad and
cast your vote for your country’s future,” reads a fervent message
encouraging Iraqi expatriates to take part in the controversial
January 30 election. Only days to go, the missive is getting a
lukewarm response though.
Iraqi
émigrés showed no avid interest in the Transitional National
Assembly election, which is held in a juncture marred by incessant
violence and uncontrollable chaos.
The
scant attention paid by the Iraqi expatriates in 14 countries
worldwide forced the vote organizers to extend until Tuesday, 25
January, the deadline for casting the ballot.
“In
the first six days of a planned seven-day registration period, just
188,000 expatriates took advantage of the opportunity to register,
against expectations of up to a million,” Peter Erben, who is
organizing the out-of-country vote for the Geneva-based International
Organization for Migration (IOM), told reporters in Amman, Jordan.
Bernie
Hogan, the director of IOM’s voting operation in Australia, added
that the overall figure worldwide was “about one in 10 of what we
expected.”
The
Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI) and the IOM are
coordinating the voting program for the Iraqi expatriates.
The
92-million-dollar vote is supposed to be carried out in 14 countries:
the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Syria, Iran, Turkey, the United
States, Canada, Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands,
Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Members
of the 275-seat National Assembly will be elected to choose later a
Presidency Council and draft the country’s constitution.
The
constitution must then be ratified through a national referendum –
scheduled to take place at the end of 2005.
Australia…
In
Australia, IOM officials said they were getting roughly about 15
percent of what they expected.
Around
8,200 people had signed up, compared to early estimates of up to
40,000 or even more, out of an estimated population of Iraqis in
Australia amounting to 90,000.
IOM
officials said confidentiality fears had played a major part in
keeping eligible voters away.
Assurances
by the IOM that their personal details would remain confidential had
failed to convince many would-be voters.
“These
people have come from a nation that has been terrorised for the last
70 years,” Hogan told AFP.
“Iraqi
governments do not have a great history of democratic elections.”
There
also appeared to be some reluctance to vote while US-led occupation
troops remained in Iraq, Hogan added.
Although
Hogan said he hoped the two-day extension would allow several thousand
more Iraqis in Australia to sign up, he acknowledged that the election
overseas would be less convincing with a small voter turnout.
Also
in Australia, there has been some criticism of the IOM's organisation,
with voting centers only in Sydney, Melbourne and the remote town of
Shepparton.
Turkey…
In
Turkey, a meager 1,795 Iraqis have been registered out of 20 to 30
thousand eligible voters, the IOM’s office in the country said in a
statement.
The
voters started registering at only three polling stations across the
country –- two in Istanbul and a third in Ankara –- on January 17.
Ahmet
Betali, the director of Aid Waqfs (endowments) Authority, attributed
the tepid response to three factors.
“Printing
election leaflets and ballots in Arabic and Kurdish while excluding
Turkish has indeed alienated the Iraqi Turkomans,” he told
IslamOnline.net.
“The
boycott of the election by leading Iraqi parities and powers and a
lack of polling stations with voters having to travel thousands of
miles to cast their ballots helped also put the voters off.”
Jordan…
 |
|
“Just
188,000 expatriates took advantage of the opportunity to register,
against expectations of up to a million,” said Erben. (Reuters)
|
The
voter turnout in Jordan has been as poor as in the other designated
countries for Iraqis abroad to cast their ballots.
With
most of the 12 polling stations located in the capital Amman, only
3,439 Iraqis out of 200,000 eligible voters are to cast ballots,
according to estimates released by the IOM’s office in Amman.
Heavyweight
Iraqi clans in Jordan have called for boycotting the January vote
because it will be held under the occupation.
“Holding
the election under such circumstances is a conspiracy targeting the
Iraqi national unity,” Al-Deleim clan said in a statement, a copy of
which was obtained by IOL.
It
cited massive election fraud, abuse of the country’s resources and
the absence of to-the-point blueprints as virtually turning the
election “illegal.”
The
White House acknowledged January 13 the controversial election would
be
flawed
because of raging insecurity in the war-torn country as more Iraqi
parties boycotted the polls.
Al-Bu
Jabir clan joined forces with other clans, calling the election a
“charade starred by the agents of the new colonization and people
unfaithful to the Iraqis and the Muslim nation.”
Other
clans like, Al-Bu Hassan Al-Ali and Al-Bu Fahd, further said that they
do not recognize the “US-handpicked” government of Iyad Allawi.
Iraqi
laymen in Jordan, estimated at some 400,000, echoed similar opposition
to the election.
“This
election isn’t in the interest of the Iraqi people but will rather
reinforce the occupation,” Shiite Jaafar Al-Barqi, a tradesman, told
IOL.
Others,
ironically, have decided to vote for ousted Iraqi president Saddam
Hussein.
Syria…
In
Syria, only 9,000 Iraqis living in the country have been registered so
far, Erben said.
The
Iraqi community in Syria alone is estimated at some 400,000, of whom
nearly 200,000 are entitled to vote.
Erben
said Syria had been the first country to accept an extension of the
time allowed to register at the voting centers.
Iran…
In
Iran, some 41,000 Iraqis have so far registered to vote for the
landmark polls.
IOM
spokeswoman Monica Ellena told AFP that she was working on an estimate
there are between 100,000 and 120,000 eligible Iraqi voters in the
Islamic republic.
The
IOM’s voting operation in Iran has been criticized by Iraq's Supreme
Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) for a lack of polling
stations.
It
complained that thousands of eligible Iraqi voters will have no access
to the vote, given the absence of polling centers in the cities of
Isfahan, Shiraz, Yazd and the western province of Ilam.
The
United States….
Even
in the United States, Iraqi voters were frustrated by the limited
number of polling centers and by a prohibition on mail-in ballots and
Internet voting because of fears of fraud.
Registration
sites were set up in or near Los Angeles, California; Nashville,
Tennessee; Chicago, Illinois; and Washington.
Expatriates
in Chicago also said they don't plan to vote because they are opposed
to the election.
Laith
Al-Saud, a social sciences professor at Harold Washington College in
Chicago, said he thinks the election is illegal because the interim
government that organized it was appointed by an occupying power.
“There's
this sort of general assumption - even among those who plan to vote -
that (interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad) Allawi is going to win
because he's the US's guy,” Al-Saud told the Associated Press.
Al-Saud
added that the thousands of candidates running in the election has
left voters confused.
“They
don't know who is running. They don't know who to vote for,” Al-Saud
said.
