Expatriate Iraqis to vote in elections

By: Hamoud Kufi

BAGHDAD, Iraq: As Ayatullah Sayyed Muhammad Taqi Al-Modarresi from holy city of Karbala has warned that any delay in Iraq’s upcoming election would form a real catastrophe, Iraqi electoral officials said they would allow millions of Iraqis outside the country to vote in the coming election.

“We've decided to allow Iraqis abroad to vote, and the mechanism will be worked out in the coming days,” said Adel Al-Lami, a supervisor for the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, charged with organizing the country's first democratic elections, scheduled for January.

“The voting will take place in those countries with a large number of Iraqis.” Those 18 and older will be eligible, he added.

The United Nations and the United States had recommended strongly against allowing expatriate voting because such polling is notoriously difficult to organize and because the process is more prone to irregularities and charges of fraud. Such problems arising could threaten the legitimacy of the election, United Nations and American officials said.

But leading Shia and Kurdish politicians as well as Ayatullah Ali As-Sistani strongly supported expatriate voting. The interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi also supported expatriate voting.

Many Iraqis fled in the 35-year rule of the Baath Party and Saddam. Two million to four million are now living abroad - about half of them over 18 - with some of the biggest concentrations in Britain, the United States and Iran.

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