Exiles start voting outside Iraq

Iraqi advanceman Kamel Zozo (L) dips his finger in ink as he prepares to vote in a polling station in Berlin, Germany yesterday. Iraqi expatriates cheered and clapped as they cast their ballots across the world in the first election in Iraq since Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003. PHOTO: AFP

The first vote for Iraq's 275-member Transitional National Assembly was made by Shimon Haddad, manager of a polling centre in the suburb of Fairfield, Sydney, two days before the election in Iraq itself.

"I'm proud to vote for the election," he said as polls opened at 7:00 am (2000 GMT Thursday) in Australia, the first of 14 nations worldwide taking part in the expatriate vote.

"We have been looking forward to this time (for the) last 50 years, actually, so it's a very exciting day for Iraq citizens."

Despite the high emotion, only a maximum of 280,000 overseas Iraqis will vote for a regime to fill the vacuum left by dictator Saddam Hussein, deposed by US-led troops in April 2003.

That was the number of Iraqis who registered to vote in a nine-day process which began on January 17 with optimistic estimates that up to a million expatriates might take part.

Polling stations in the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Iran and Syria followed in opening their doors to eager voters.

"It is the chance we have been waiting for for decades," said Nazem Kazem Saoodi, a 60-year-old physician, who was the first to vote in Dubai, where voters cheered.

"Yes, we did it!" shouted Ali al-Kabeer, clapping his hands after casting his ballot, breaking into tears as he hugged his wife.

Kabeer said he had "been waiting for this moment for 54 years," 24 of which he spent in England and the UAE.

"I'm doing this for my children... it's the first step in a thousand-mile journey," he said.

The run-up to the vote in Iraq has been marred by continuous violence within the country.

In contrast, the smooth-running operation to gather overseas votes, organised by the Geneva-based International Organisation for Migration (IOM), has mainly had to contend with apathy.

Of the 280,000 Iraqis who signed up, more than 60,000 were in neighbouring Iran, around half the country's large exiled population.

Polling stations opened in six Iranian cities, according to Monica Ellena of the IOM, with queues reported in some centres.

In Britain, of a 150,000-strong Iraqi community estimated to be allowed to vote, just under 31,000 registered, local organisers said.

Nonetheless, early voters living in Washington's closest ally in the war to unseat Saddam were gleeful.