No hurdle too great for Utah Iraqi voters

This weekend, Benan Zahawi and several friends will climb into a rented van, drive 12 hours across the desert, then turn around and drive 12 hours back.

Next week, they'll make the same sleepless trip all over again. That's 48 hours and 2,700 miles — just so they can vote in the upcoming Iraqi elections.

Zahawi is part of a group of about 50 mostly Shia Iraqis leaving Utah on Friday night to make the trip to Irvine, Calif., the closest of five U.S. polling places.

"The best gift for my country is to vote," said Jenan al-Baderi of West Valley City, who also plans two trips to California to vote. "After the vote, freedom. Before that, we didn't have anything."

The two trips are necessary because registration for Iraqi voting in the United States is being held Jan. 17-23, while the voting itself will be held Jan. 28-30. Along with Iraqis in Iraq, "out-of-country" Iraqis in 14 nations will be choosing 275 people to serve on the Iraqi Transitional National Assembly. They'll select from a pool of 364 candidates and political groups.

For Utah Iraqis, it's a long and complicated trip to the voting booth. Although some will fly to California, many will make the trip by car. Some will travel with children, some will take out loans to pay for rental cars and lodging. Some are planning to make the round-trip with no layover, timing their arrival with the 10 a.m. opening of registration.

But nobody's complaining.

"We have been waiting a long time" to vote, said Thikra Mohammed, originally from Baghdad, who will be taking the trip with her husband and two children. "We are faithful, we have to (vote). It is not just for our people, it is for all Iraq."

At an informational meeting last weekend at the Alrasool Islamic Center in South Salt Lake, a group of Utah Iraqis listened to a presentation about the elections and talked about the risks their family members in Iraq were planning to take in order to vote — risks that made their own inconveniences pale by comparison.

"They urge me to go, and I urge them to go," Mustafa al-Hussaini said of his family in Basra.

Voting, he said, is "a chance for us to prove to the rest of the world that we want a stable Iraq, . . . a country that can live in peace with the rest of the world."