Iraqis in Utah excited about vote

Jenan al-Baderi voted for the first time last weekend. So did her family in Iraq.

She said she was delighted when she called her family and found out she and her sister had voted for the same party in the Iraqi election.

"I told her 169. She said, 'Me, too,' " al-Baderi said after returning from her second drive to Irvine, Calif., the nearest polling place to Salt Lake City.

Al-Baderi, her husband and several other Utahns traveled 2,700 miles in the last two weeks to register and vote.

"Everybody is excited; everybody is happy," said al-Baderi. "My whole family voted."

She was one of 24,335 Iraqis who voted in five U.S. cities — Chicago; Detroit; Los Angeles; Nashville, Tenn.; and Washington, D.C., according to the International Organization for Migration.

When the ballots are counted, Iraqis will have selected the 275-member assembly that will draft Iraq's constitution and prepare for a general election at the end of the year.

About 60 percent of the country's 14 million registered voters cast ballots in Iraq's first democratic election in more than 50 years.

In an early tally of ballots from the Jan. 30 election, a Shiite Muslim coalition led by an Iranian-born cleric has taken more than two-thirds of the vote in 10 of Iraq's 18 provinces, according to the country's Independent Electoral Commission.

The elections weren't without violence. Insurgents in Iraq struck polling stations, killing at least 44 people.

Benan Zahawi, another Utahn who traveled to vote, said he believes too much emphasis has been placed on the election. He said voting is a starting point, but the situation in Iraq is still unsettled.

"We'll just have to wait and hope they can work together," said Zahawi.

He said Iraqis don't understand the democratic process in the same way Americans do.

"What they did was more or less voting on either an ethnic or a religious basis, not who is better," Zahawi said. "People are mentioning democracy, democracy. How many years did it take people in the United states to understand what democracy is? We are expecting Iraqis to understand it in a month."

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E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com