Jordan Times
Thursday, January 17, 2005
20,166 Iraqis residing in
Jordan register to vote
By Sahar Aloul with agency dispatches
AMMAN — A total of 20,166 Iraqis residing in Jordan registered their names to
participate in their country's landmark elections, according to an official at
the body charged with organising the polls outside Iraq.
Lazhar Aloui, head of the Jordan office of the
International Organisation for Migration (IOM) told a press conference on
Wednesday that some 200,000 Iraqis are believed to be living in Jordan, half of
them eligible voters.
The IOM attributed the low turnout to register for the Jan. 30 polls to “fear
and apprehension” but said the numbers were relatively “acceptable.”
“Many Iraqis with expired residency permits, stayed away from registration
centres for fear of questioning by the police,” who were deployed at the 11
registration centres.
Polling stations will open their doors early Jan. 28 and will close at 5:00pm on
Jan. 30.
Ballots will be counted the following day at these stations and results will be
sent electronically to Baghdad by Feb. 5 where the final results will be
announced, according to IOM.
The turnout to register for the out-of-country voting was not much better
elsewhere.
Of around one million Iraqis eligible to take part in the absentee ballots in 14
countries, only some 280,000 have registered to take part, according to
organisers.
Reuters quoted the IOM as saying that 280,303 Iraqi expatriates had registered
in the 14 countries over a nine-day campaign that ended on Tuesday.
These will vote from Friday to Sunday, the polling day for Iraqis at home, at
the same 74 registration centres in 36 cities worldwide.
“We are satisfied that we were able to run a smooth registration process which
provided registration facilities for over a quarter of a million Iraqis,” the
programme's director Peter Erben was quoted by Reuters as saying in a statement.
“With no registration data available in advance, this was a baseline exercise to
establish the level of interest for an out-of-country vote,” he said.
Michael Burke, head of the IOM in the United Arab Emirates, said about 12,581
Iraqis out of a possible 60,000-65,000 eligible voters had signed up in the Gulf
country.
Burke said among the 20 per cent who had registered in the UAE, the headquarters
for voting in the region, only a small number came from other Gulf countries.