EVERETT – Adil al-Rikabi will travel more than 4,500 miles over the next two weeks to add his vote to the millions being cast in the Jan. 30 elections in Iraq.
As al-Rikabi prepared to leave Sunday to register to vote in Los Angeles – the only West Coast polling place for Iraqis living in the United States – he said it’s a sacrifice he is glad to make.
“We’re ready to go anywhere to be a part of this,” al-Rikabi said. “This is history. It’s the first time we’re going to choose a government and experience democracy.”
Al-Rikabi is organizing a voting expedition to California that could include up to 20 Snohomish County refugees from Iraq. The group may rent a bus if there are enough people.
They plan to drive through the night to register Monday morning, then head back to Everett that afternoon. They’ll have to make another trip at the end of the month to cast ballots for members of a transitional national assembly, who will then draft a constitution. Polls in Los Angeles will be open Jan. 28-30.
Ahmed al-Mahana of Everett said he may go with al-Rikabi. He’s trying to find a way to spend a few days away from his job running a trucking company.
“This is such an important event in our lives as Iraqi people,” he said.
Traveling to Los Angeles twice just to vote may seem extraordinary to Americans, many of whom have ballots mailed to their home.
But to al-Mahana, driving to Los Angeles is a welcome inconvenience compared with the risk many will take when they arrive at the polls in Iraq on Jan. 30. Insurgents in heavily Sunni Muslim parts of Iraq have been distributing leaflets threatening to murder anyone who votes.
Al-Mahana, 43, said he recently talked to a Sunni friend in Iraq who told him he’s too frightened to vote.
“Everyone knows that if Sunnis don’t vote, they won’t accept the results,” al-Mahana said. And that could lead to further destabilization of the country, he said.
Like many other local Iraqis, al-Mahana will vote for the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shiite-dominated party that is expected to win.
The vast majority of the several hundred Iraqi refugees in Snohomish County are Shiite Muslims who fled Saddam Hussein’s regime after experiencing political persecution. More than 60 percent of Iraqis are Shiite. Hussein is a Sunni.
Like al-Mahana, Imad al-Turfy is convinced that, if the alliance wins, it would treat Sunnis and Kurds fairly. Some of the alliance candidates are Kurdish or Sunni, he said.
“We are one country, a mixture of people,” al-Turfy said. “If they win, everyone will have rights. They are very fair, honest people.”
Al-Turfy, 44, is upset there is no polling place closer to Everett. He and his wife won’t vote because they can’t leave their three children alone.
There are only four other U.S. cities where Iraqis can vote: Chicago, Detroit, Nashville and Washington, D.C.
“I don’t know why they don’t put an election box here in Washington state,” al-Turfy said. “I’m very angry.”
Reporter David Olson: 425-339-3452 or dolson@heraldnet.com.
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