Replies

Polls Open, Voters File in Across Iraq

By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Voters trickled into polling stations under tight security Sunday in Iraq, casting ballots despite insurgents who promised to sabotage the country's first free election in a half-century.

Poll workers checked identifications, and Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawer was one of the first to vote at election headquarters in the heavily fortified Green Zone, calling the election his country's first step "toward joining the free world."

As poll workers watched, he marked two ballots and then dropped them into boxes. A poll worker handed him an Iraqi flag as he left.

"I'm very proud and happy this morning," al-Yawher told reporters. "I congratulate all the Iraqi people and call them to vote for Iraq."

Even before voting began, mortar fire boomed across Baghdad as the world awaited the vote that will echo from militant Islamic Web sites in the Mideast to the halls of the White House. Insurgents rocketed the U.S. Embassy late Saturday in Baghdad, killing two Americans. Seven people were arrested in the attack.

An Iraq man casts his vote in a polling station in Melbourne as Iraqi exiles in Australia become the first to vote in this weekend's historic Iraq elections.(AFP/Willaim West)

Almost 8,000 Iraqi exiles vote in Australia

SYDNEY (AFP) - Almost 8,000 Iraqi exiles, two thirds of those registered in Australia to vote in Iraq's first democratic elections for half a century, had cast their ballots, organisers said here.

By the end of voting on Saturday some 7,700 of the 11,800 who registered had voted, and people were still trickling early Sunday into the nine polling stations in Sydney, Melbourne and in the Victoria state regional centre of Shepparton.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which organised the out-of-country voting program, has estimated that around 40,000 Iraqis resident in Australia were eligible to vote in the historic poll.

But almost three quarters had failed to register, citing in some cases fears for their families in Iraq, concerns about their residential status in Australia or lack of information about who they would be voting for.

"Some have lived in Australia for many years, two decades in some cases, and there was an element of disconnection to the election in Iraq, or scepticism about it," a spokeswoman for the IOM said Sunday.

But she said organisers were pleased with the turn out so far and were anticipating many more would vote before the close of polling at 5:00 pm (0600 GMT).

"They have turned out in their thousands in the first two days, many expressing euphoria and jubilation at voting for the first time in their lives," she said.

Expatriate Iraqis have travelled from all over Australia and New Zealand to cast their votes at the nine polling stations.

Iraqi exile Jasmiyeh Al-Othaman Tamimi, right, casts her vote in the Iraqi election with the help of an election official in Sydney, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 30, 2005, just hours before people in her homeland of Iraq go to the polls. Many of Australia's estimated 80,000 Iraqis declined to register for the election, fearing that their votes would make relatives in Iraq terrorist targets. (AP Photo/Dan Peled)