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Voters keep coming despite ongoing attacks

Jan-30-2005 » Filed Under: Iraq News

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Associated Press

ASKAN, Iraq — Some couldn't read, but knew their party's identification number on the ballot. Others couldn't see, but were led to the polls by police.

Across wide swathes of Iraq, especially in the southern Shiite and northern Kurdish areas, Iraqis went to the polls today, expressing fierce determination and pride, together with hope that the election will improve their hard lives.

"I don't have a job. I hope the new government will give me a job," said one voter, Rashi Ayash, 50, a former Iraqi lieutenant colonel.

From the early hours of this morning, Iraqis stood in long lines that wrapped around street corners, defying militant threats of violence to cast their votes for the 275-member National Assembly. Dozens were killed as militants fired mortars, and in one town, a suicide bomber mingled with voters waiting outside a polling booth.[...]

In the northern Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah, a man carried 80-year-old Mohammed Karim Khader over his shoulders and trekked the last few steps to the polling station.

At a polling place in eastern Baghdad, an Iraqi policeman in a black ski mask tucked his assault rifle under one arm and held the hand of an elderly blind woman to guide her to the polls.

Fathiya Mohammed shrugged off the incessant threats of violence and donned her head-to-toe abaya before heading to her neighborhood polling station in the small town of Askan south of Baghdad.

"This is democracy," the elderly woman said proudly, holding up a thumb stained with the purple ink used to mark those who had voted. "This is the first day I feel freedom."[...]


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