‘We want to stand tall again’

KARIMA KHALAF has never voted in her life before. Yesterday, along with millions of other Iraqis, she walked many miles to a polling station as the country entered a new, and hopefully democratic era.

Whether the transition will allow war-ravaged Iraq to turn the corner, it is too early to say, but there was no mistaking the joy on the faces of those making their pilgrimage to the polls.

In the predominantly Shi’ite South of the country, whose population suffered many years of oppression by Saddam’s regime and has never enjoyed the fruits of power, it was a chance to turn the tables which they took with both hands.