Jordan Times
Friday, January 28, 2005
Expatriate Iraqis to start
voting today
Amman (JT) — Registered Iraqi voters can cast their ballots as of today in
designated polling centres across the Kingdom.
Some 20,166 Iraqis have registered to take part in the polls in the Kingdom,
according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
An IOM statement release in Amman Thursday said the first vote in Iraq's
Transitional National Assembly Elections is set to be cast Friday by an
expatriate Iraqi residing in Australia when the IOM Iraq Out-of-Country Voting (OCV)
Programme opens its polling stations there at 7:00am local time.
The statement said the IOM is conducting the OCV Programme on behalf of the
Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI), which is the exclusive
electoral authority for the Iraq elections. It is an independent, non-partisan
body, which has the authority to legally enforce rules and procedures relating
to elections held throughout the transitional period.
Elections for Iraq's Transitional National Assembly will be held in Iraq on Jan.
30 and outside Iraq from Jan. 28 to 30. Members of the 275-seat assembly will be
elected by proportional representation with a one-year mandate. Their
responsibilities will include choosing a 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 Jan. 17 and 25 and we
look forward to them casting their vote in this historic election this weekend,"
commented 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," Erben was quoted by the IOM
statement as saying.
The statement added that 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 will be open from 07:00 until 17:00, local
time over the three days of polling. 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 National Assembly election on Jan. 30. The list of candidates
representing the 111 political entities on the ballot, can now be found online
on the IECI website (www.ieciraq.org), and on the IOM OCV Programme website (www.iraqocv.org).
The list is available in downloadable PDF format.
In addition, the list of candidates will be printed and several copies will be
available to read within each Iraq OCV polling station in the 14 countries where
the OCV Programme is being conducted.
Iraqis around the world can obtain more information about registering and voting
in the National Assembly Election by contacting the Voter Information Centre. An
innovative voter information tool, the centre provides the Iraqi diaspora with a
direct link to the Iraq OCV Programme. Contact can be made by phone, SMS text
message, or e-mail. Trained Iraqi staff will be available to answer questions in
Arabic, English and Kurdish, seven days a week from 05:00 GMT to 23:00 GMT.
Contact details for the Voter Information Centre can also be found on the Iraq
OCV website.
Voting details can be found at www.ieciraq.org and www.iraqocv.org