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LONDON (AP) - Iraqis around the world
streamed into polling stations Sunday for their last
chance to cast ballots in Iraq's historic election,
expressing hopes that the vote will bring peace and
stability to their homeland.
As millions of people in Iraq defied insurgent
threats and voted in their country's first
independent election in five decades, Sunday also
marked the third and final day of absentee voting in
14 other countries.
"This is a clear and loud message that Iraqis inside
and outside are united in defeating terrorism,"
Mansour Ibrahim said as he entered a voting centre
amid tight security in the upscale Suwfiya
neighbourhood in the Jordanian capital, Amman.
Scuffles broke out between voters and anti-U.S.
protesters at a polling station Sunday in Britain
and voting was extended at one site in Australia to
make up for lost time after a similar skirmish the
day before.
But no major violence was reported and organizers
said the three-day balloting that started Friday has
been a success so far, despite early concerns about
turnout after only 25 per cent of 1.2 eligible
Iraqis abroad registered to vote.
The low registration figure was attributed partly to
fears of violence and retribution from insurgents
but also the fact that not all countries with large
numbers of Iraqis, including Egypt, participated and
many voters had to travel abroad to register and
then again to vote.
Many Iraqis in the United States had to drive
hundreds of kilometres to reach the five cities with
polling places: Nashville, Detroit, Chicago, Los
Angeles and Washington.
Most of those who did sign up were thrilled at the
chance to participate. The latest available figures
showed that about two-thirds of those who did sign
up had cast ballots in the first two days.
The Geneva-based International Organization for
Migration, which is conducting the expatriate vote
for Iraq's electoral commission, said 186,619 of the
280,303 registered Iraqis went to the polls Friday
and Saturday, many travelling long distances.
"Everything is proceeding well, everyone is terribly
excited about these historic elections," said Sarah
Fradgley, an IOM spokeswoman in London. "Everyone is
anxiously waiting for news from Iraq and people have
been speaking to their families in Baghdad and
elsewhere."
Fistfights broke out at a polling station in
Manchester, northern England, between mostly
Kurdish-Iraqi voters and dozens of protesters who
claimed the elections legitimize the U.S.-led
coalition's presence in Iraq, Sky News TV reported.
Sky News showed footage of police breaking up the
fights, but reported no arrests and no serious
injuries. A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police
described the skirmish as "a minor incident," which
officers had brought under control.
Jubilant voters at a voting centre in Wembley,
northwest London, danced and held up Kurdish flags.
But police said they arrested one person for
threatening behaviour and about 50 demonstrators
protesting the elections waved banners and shouted
slogans in Arabic.
"This process isn't going to deliver a
representative government," said Qasim Khawaja, one
of the protesters and a spokesman for radical Muslim
group Hizb Ut Tahrir.
No incidents were reported at five polling stations
in Canada, including three in the Greater Toronto
Area. Nearly 11,000 Iraqi-Canadians registered to
vote out of an estimated 25,000 eligible.
In Berlin hundreds of Iraqi expatriates arrived by
the busload to take part in the voting.
"It is the first time we've been allowed to vote.
For us, for our lives, it is very important," said
Rana Al-Mudhaffar, 52, who left Iraq in 1980. She
and her 24-year-old daughter, Sana, travelled three
hours from the eastern state of Thuringia to cast
ballots. "We're hoping a democratic government will
bring peace and stability to Iraq."
In Australia, voting was extended by a half hour on
Saturday and Sunday at a polling station after
skirmishes pitting largely Shiite Iraqi voters
against protesters identified as fundamentalists and
a bomb scare closed it for an hour on Saturday.
In Iran, Ala Nariman, 33, cast her vote to help
ensure Iraq's Shiite majority would be well
represented in the new government - which is widely
expected to be the case. But she said Shiite clerics
should not intervene in politics, as fears have been
raised in the West and in the Arab world that Iraq
will ally itself with Iran's Shiite theocracy.
"They have to avoid the Iranian model of
government," she said. "It would be better for all."
Countries hosting the vote were Australia, the
United States, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France,
Germany, Iran, Jordan, the Netherlands, Sweden,
Syria, Turkey and United Arab Emirates.
AP
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