Iraqi expats flock to polling stations to cast their votes

DUBAI — Taking advantage of the weekend, an estimated 5,000 Iraqi expatriates voted yesterday on the first day of the three-day out-of-country voting (OCV) to elect a Transitional National Assembly back home.

By A Staff Reporter

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Published: Sat 29 Jan 2005, 1:43 PM

Last updated: Thu 2 Apr 2015, 3:43 PM

Initial estimates said around 2,600 votes were cast at the polling station in Dubai and around 1,500 at the Zayed Sports City in Abu Dhabi, but with queues several people long left at the stations even after 5pm, the scheduled close for the day, the final count was expected to be much more, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) implementing the OCV programme.

The expatriates can vote today and Sunday, the day when voting will take place in Iraq.

Nicola Baldwin, Country Chief of External Relations, UAE for the programme, said the first day of out-of-country voting in the UAE has been busy with long queues of registered voters forming outside the polling stations from early in the day till well after 5pm.

“I expect we will have well over a third of the total number registered coming in to vote today," Baldwin told Khaleej Times. “It is a big crowd, but it was being managed, it’s not overwhelming.”

Officials were allowing those standing on the queue as of 5pm to enter the tent and vote. But no one who came later than 5pm was allowed to join the queue. Baldwin said that they expected well over 5,000 to have voted by the end of the day in both Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

The general mood among the voters was one of enthusiasm and optimism as many, who had registered to vote over the past week, were eager to cast their ballots for what many hope will be a brighter future for their country.

Election officials said the day passed without incident. The IOM is conducting the OCV programme on behalf of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI), which is the exclusive authority for the Iraqi elections.

Members of the 275-seat Assembly will be elected by proportional representation with a one-year mandate. Their responsibilities will include choosing Presidential Council and drafting Iraq’s permanent constitution. The constitution must then be ratified through a national referendum, scheduled to take place in October 2005.

“Over 280,000 expatriate Iraqis registered to vote between 17 and 25 January and we look forward to their casting their votes in this historic election,” said Peter Erben, Director of IOM’s Iraq OCV Programme. “Our staff has been fully trained and are all in place to ensure that everything runs smoothly throughout the polling process.”

The Iraq OCV Programme has set up polling centres in 74 locations in 36 cities in 14 countries across the Middle East, North America, Europe and Australia. The centres in each country will be open from 7am until 5pm on polling days. To vote, expatriate Iraqis must return to the same location in which they registered with their OCV registration receipt and a photo ID.

To help inform voters, the IECI has released a list of candidates standing for the Iraq transitional assembly election. The list of candidates representing the 111 political entities on the ballot, can be found online on the IECI web site (www.ieciraq.org) and on the IOM’s OCV Programme website (www.iraqocv.org).

The list of candidates will also be available at each Iraq OCV polling station in the 14 countries where the OCV Programme is being conducted.


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