Expat Iraqis to the polls
2005-01-28 17:36
Geneva - Iraq's out-of-country voting is going well so-far and a high number of the expatriates who registered to take part are expected to turn up and vote, said a spokesman Friday for the body organising the ballot.
"So far so good," said Jean Philippe Chauzy, a spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
"Things are going smoothly and we have had no reported incidents and we certainly hope that it will continue that way," he told a news conference in Geneva, where the organisation is headquartered.
Only one in four Iraqis living overseas who are eligible to vote have signed up to participate in their country's first democratic election in 50 years.
But Chauzy put this down to logistical problems as people had to go themselves to the polling booths in 14 designated countries to register and then to vote, which for some meant travelling hundreds of kilometres.
"We had 67 days to organise this whole operation that meant that people could not register and could not vote by mail; they had to turn up physically," he said.
In contrast, the out-of-country voting for Afghanistan's recent elections, which was also organised by the IOM, welcomed 850 000 Afghani voters living in Pakistan and Iran.
Chauzy said that the higher turnout was because the IOM had slightly longer to prepare for the polls and it only had to concentrate on two countries.
"It was much easier for them to go and register and vote, they did not have to travel hundreds of miles to do so," he said.
Thousands of expatriate Iraqis began casting ballots earlier in the day at polling booths in 14 countries across the world, including Iran, Jordan, Syria and the United Arab Emirates.
"Of the 280 000 people who bothered to go in person to register to vote, we believe that the participation over the three days... will be high," predicted the IOM spokesman.
The operation is being run from the IOM's offices in Amman, which will gather and count the results.
- SAPA