Assyrian Democratic Organization ADO
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| Members of the Assyrian National Asssembly and others who have voted in the Iraqi election celebrate with Assyrian flags at the El Toro Marine Air Station in Irvine, Friday, Jan. 28, 2004. Northern Iraq is part of the ancestral lands of the former Assyrian nation. The National Rafidain List, an Assyrian Christian group, with 28 candidates led by former Iraqi Governing Council member Yonadem Kana, is competing in Iraq’s election. (AP Photo/Ann Johansson) |
Organizers for the expatriate Iraqi vote in Geneva are declaring everything went smoothly, news agencies reported Monday. About 265,000 former Iraqi citizens throughout the globe voted in special overseas locations for the nation’s first democratic election in decades.
According to the Internet Broadcasting Systems (IBS), the country’s electoral commission estimates that voter turnout Sunday was higher than the 57 percent predicted before the election.
The voting, which was hailed by world leaders as resounding success and a blow against global terrorism, was dominated by Shiite Muslims and Kurds as Sunni Muslims stayed away in droves. Reportedly, Sunni Muslims—the largest sect of believers in Islam—are concerned they won’t be adequately represented in the new government.
Meanwhile a large number of Iraq’s Christian minority also participated in the landmark elections, seeing it as the main road to security.
“We want a strong government and I hope that Iraq will soon be a secure place,” a member of Iraq’s tiny Christian minority told the Associated Press. “We came here to defy the terrorists.”
In central Baghdad, the local polling director said 65 percent of the 3,000 registered voters at his station were Christians. During a reporter’s visit at midafternoon, he said about 1,600 of them had voted so far.
However, some Iraqi Christians say their kinsmen in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq weren’t allowed to vote in Sunday’s election.
Simon George, co-director of an Assyrian satellite television station, said he received “at least 100 calls” from Assyrians complaining about being deprived of the vote in Christian villages around the northwestern Iraqi city of Mosul. According to IBS, he said Assyrian Christians were promised ballot boxes that didn’t arrive.
George said he was told that in the Assyrian villages, Kurds “stopped all the elections.”
In New York, the Rev. Ken Joseph Jr. of AssyrianChristians.com said he’s received similar reports from his fellow Assyrian Christians, and has asked that those villages be given an extra day to cast ballots.
Joseph said he’s also concerned that Iranians may have crossed the border to inflate the vote for Shiite parties. He said most Assyrians and other Iraqis want a secular government.
According to IBS, many Iraqi Christians who did case ballots in Sunday’s election say they voted for Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite Muslim.
A Christian housewife at a Baghdad polling station told the Associated Press a vote for Allawi meant, “choosing a strong leader who does not differentiate between Iraqis of any religion.” A Christian couple said they were defying insurgents and choosing a leader who they hope will bring security to Iraq.
Another Iraqi Christian, Shamoun Boulos, told AP, “This is the first time I vote totally free. Today is the birthday of a new state in Iraq.” He noted that previously in elections during Saddam’s reign, the regime routinely had the president winning with 99 percent of the votes.
When asked if the violence aimed at Christians had him thinking of leaving, Boulos replied, “Not at all.”
“We were here even before Islam,” he said. “This is our land and we will stay here.”
However, despite a history of Christian faith in Iraq that dates back to the time of the apostles and a tradition of integration with their Islamic neighbors, since the recent wave of church bombings that began last year in August, as many as 40,000 of Iraq’s 700,000 Christians have fled to neighboring Jordan and Syria.
Last month, gunmen attacked two churches in the northwestern Iraqi city of Mosul, forcing people to leave and setting off explosions inside the buildings that caused damage but no personal harm. In November, masked men detonated a bomb near an Orthodox Church in southern Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 34. In October, five Baghdad churches were attacked, causing damage but no casualties. And in August, similar attacks killed at least 10 and wounded nearly 50 Iraqi Christians.
In his first news conference since the elections, Allawi called on Iraqis to join together to build a peaceful society out of a land shattered by decades of war, tyranny, economic sanctions and military occupation.
And while Allawi acknowledged “there will still be some acts of violence,” he said Iraq’s elections have dealt insurgents a major blow.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair also called the Iraq election a blow against global terrorism, while U.S. President George W. Bush hailed the election as a signal that Iraqis had rejected the extremist ideologies and terrorism that have threatened to unravel both U.S. policy and Iraq.
Bush acknowledged, however, that the escalating insurgency, which claimed at least 44 lives on election day, will continue to be a problem during the next phase of Iraq’s transition. But he said that Iraqis have “taken rightful control of their country’s destiny … and they have chosen a future of freedom and peace.”
According to sources, local centers now will prepare tally sheets and send them to Baghdad, where they will be reviewed and the vote totals compiled. That process could take up to 10 days.
| Kenneth Chan kenneth@christianpost.com |
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