Region | Iraq
Iraqis with dual nationality can vote
Election law allows anyone having nation's citizenship to exercise right
- AP
- Published: 23:31 May 3, 2009
Amman: Iraqi law doesn't bar Iraqis with dual nationality, even those holding Israeli or Iranian passports, from voting in out-of-country polling for Iraq's upcoming parliamentary elections, a top Iraqi election official said on Sunday.
Hamida Al Hussaini, director of out-of-country voting in the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, told reporters that Iraq's election law says "anyone who carries an Iraqi citizenship has the right to cast a ballot in the upcoming parliamentary elections."
"The law doesn't state what could be done in the case of dual nationality," she said, answering a question on whether Israelis or Iranians of Iraqi origin can vote. She avoided specifically naming Israel and Iran.
"How would we know about a person's other nationality? We will only be checking documents verifying Iraqi nationality," Hamida said.
Participation by Iraqi-Israelis numbering an estimated 290,000 is expected to be limited as there will be no polling stations in Israel and they must vote in another country, said Mordechai Ben Porat, who led the Jewish underground in Iraq and helped organise the 1950s exodus of Iraq's Jews.
"If there had been a polling station in Israel, I would definitely go," Ben Porat said, adding Jordan will be the closest polling station.
Two Iraqi-born Israeli journalists twice travelled to Jordan to cast votes in the last election to prove their Iraqi identity and then to vote, said Ben Porat.
Out-of-country voting in 15 designated countries starts on Tuesday, two days ahead of the one-day of polling scheduled in Iraq to elect 275 representatives to a four-year term in parliament.
Cameras are set to monitor ballot boxes in the different host countries during voting and the subsequent counting process and host countries will provide security at polling stations, Hamida said.
Meanwhile, $42 million (Dh154.56 million) has been allocated to the voting programme, which includes running 557 stations at 93 balloting centres in 47 cities globally, Hamida said.
The balloting centres will be staffed by some 5,000 employees and 2,000 independent monitors. She said her budget was $30 million (Dh110.4 million) less than what was spent on polls in January.
Some 500,000 eligible Iraqi expatriate voters are expected to vote, double the turnout in the previous elections, she said..
The largest polling stations are in Iran and the United States because of the geographic distribution and the large Iraqi expatriate population in those countries, she said.
Other nations hosting the expatriate Iraqi vote are Canada, Australia, Britain, Austria, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and the UAE.
The expatriates could influence the results of the elections, anaylsts were quoted as saying.
Mouayaed Al Windawi, an Iraqi political scientist at the Amman-based Arab Institute for Research and Strategic Studies, told United Nations Information Service (IRIN), the participation of these communities is important because "Iraqis living in these countries could have a substantial influence on the final results."
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