31 January 2005
Iraqis Defy Terrorist Threats To Cast Their Votes
Millions of Iraqis turn out for first democratic elections in 50 years
By David Shelby
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington – Millions of Iraqis defied threats of violence and terrorist attacks to cast their ballots January 30 in the country's first open, multiparty democratic elections in more than half a century.
A Turkish press agency quoted 80-year-old Mahdeya Saleh from Najaf as saying, "I had often been forced to vote under Saddam Hussein. Today I come out of my own will to choose freely the candidate of my choice for the first and last time in my life."
Insurgents published messages on Web sites, distributed leaflets and painted graffiti on the walls threatening to turn the elections into a bloodbath and hunt down and kill anyone who dared to vote, but millions of Iraqi citizens refused to be intimidated.
"Why should I be afraid?" Arifa Abed Mohamed told a Christian Science Monitor reporter at a Baghdad polling station. "I am afraid only from God."
Many other Iraqis expressed a similar disregard for the insurgents' threats. "I would have crawled here if I had to," Samir Hassan told a Reuters reporter. "I don't want terrorists to kill other Iraqis like they tried to kill me." Hassan lost his leg in an October 2004 car-bomb attack.
Speaking about the unexpectedly high voter turnout, Hamid Majid, deputy speaker of the Iraqi National Assembly told Cairo Radio, "This means that Iraqis reject dictatorship, reject despotism, reject extremism and violence, and look forward to freedom, peace, democracy and construction."
"I cannot describe what I am seeing," Baghdad Mayor Alaa al-Tamimi told Reuters. "It is incredible. This is a vote for the future, for the children, for the rule of law, for humanity, for love,"
Iraq's Deputy President Ibrahim Ja'fari agreed. Shortly after casting his ballot, he told reporters, "The Iraqi people showed that their voice is louder than the sound of bullets."
"The terrorists now know that they cannot win," Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi affirmed.
For many voters, the election was not only an opportunity to cast a vote against the insurgents but also a chance to bring closure to the dark chapter of Saddam Hussein's rule.
A woman in Basra told an Iraqi television reporter, "My six children were executed by Saddam. I have come here today so that by voting I may honor the memory of my six children."
Baghdad resident Zahara Uboud Mansour told Voice of America that she was voting as a final farewell gesture to the tyrant Saddam Hussein.
Iraqi election officials said that it would be several days before they could provide an accurate indication of which parties and candidates emerged on top in the balloting, but Iraq's Minister of Human Rights Bakhtiaar Ameen affirmed, "These elections will not be like the last one, with a result of 99.9 percent for one person."
Allawi called for national unity as the results are tabulated and Iraq moves ahead with the next stages of building its democratic institutions. "We are entering a new era of our history and all Iraqis - whether they voted or not - should stand side by side to build their future," he said. The 275-member Transitional National Assembly that emerges from the elections will be charged with drafting a permanent Iraqi constitution.
President Bush saluted the courage of the Iraqis who administered, protected and participated in the elections. "The Iraqi people, themselves, made this election a resounding success," he said.
"By participating in free elections, the Iraqi people have firmly rejected the anti-democratic ideology of the terrorists. They have refused to be intimidated by thugs and assassins. And they have demonstrated the kind of courage that is always the foundation of self-government," he added.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan also paid tribute to the Iraqi people, the Iraqi Elections Commission, the poll workers and the poll monitors for "having organized and carried out elections so effectively in such a limited timeframe and such daunting circumstances."
Annan thanked the U.N. team that provided technical support to the Iraqi Electoral Commission and said that the United Nations is prepared to continue providing electoral assistance and advice in the constitutional process if needed.
The European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana affirmed the European commitment to support the Iraqis as well. "They are going to find the support of the European Union, no doubt about that, in order to see this process move on in the right direction," he told the Associated Press.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
This page printed from: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2005&m=January&x=20050131173914ndyblehs0.6315119&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html
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