‘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.

Despite a nationwide ban on car travel, men and women trudged up to 30 miles to join long but largely orderly queues to fill out the bewildering ballot papers with its 111 parties across the country.

Clearly despite their enthusiasm to take part, many voters had only a vague idea of what the election was all about.

“I want to choose a strong president,” said Karima, 52 - even though the poll is to choose a national assembly to draft a new constitution. Informed of this, the mother-of-eight, who had walked to the polling station in al Amarah for an hour with her husband, and lined up for a further hour, smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

“We want to have a stable country with power and water - we want to stand tall again,” she said.

Each voter had to first pass through a rigorous security cordon manned by the Iraqi police and army, with troops from the multi-national force on standby nearby.

Then, after a check on their identity cards, it was into the cardboard polling booths to make their choice under a form of proportional representation for both national and local elections.

To ensure no double voting, voters right index finger was dipped in an indelible purple-brown dye.

Father-of-two Abbas Mozan, 41, waved his stained finger excitedly and creased his leathery features in a grin as he joined in the almost festive atmosphere in the regional capital of al Amarah, many of whose 300,000 population turned out. Like much of the south, much of it patrolled by British troops, the city is marked by grinding poverty, fuel shortages, power cuts and stinking open sewers within yards of housing.

“Tonight I shall celebrate with cheese, sweets and chocolate,” said the unemployed lorry driver.

“This is a great day for Iraq and maybe now we can become prosperous again.”

Further south in Basra, the joyous scenes were repeated where children enjoying a day off school played football on deserted roads normally thronged with traffic.

Though a blast was heard at one school being used as a polling station in the city shortly after voting began, it was believed to be a blast bomb and there were no reports of casualties, in stark contrast to Baghdad.

“This is a new feeling and I am very happy at the experience,” said Ahlan Hammadi who, accompanied by her husband and five children, had just cast her ballot at the Hurriya school in the centre of Iraq’s second city.

There was quiet determination in the air as voters turned out in force in Basra, a relatively peaceful region.

“We are very happy for this day. It’s like Eid - a celebration,” said Jassim Mo-hammed Jassim, an election observer from the Islamic Daawa Party.

The only cloud was the reaction of Islamist groups if they did not receive the share of the vote they wanted.