An Iraqi expat on his voting experience

MEE spoke to an Iraqi expat, who complained of procedural difficulties that prevented him from casting his ballot. He told us:

"My experience with the Iraqi election procedure  was not good this time. The 'Election Commission' had asked for various documents, some of which had to be original Iraqi documents as well as various supporting documents. These details were not made available to us before the election dates and the documents are difficult to obtain outside Iraq. I was unable to cast my vote because I did not have some of the documents. They also decided that the voting would be on Sunday 27th April and Monday 28th April which is a working day for many people – making it difficult to go to the polling station."

The UN estimates that around 2 million Iraqis are currently living outside the country. The majority of these are thought to be living in Jordan and Syria.

According to Iraq's Electoral Commission, polling stations have been set up in almost 60 cities worldwide. 

A number of voters in Gulf countries said they were unable to vote for reasons that were not made clear, according to reports in al-Sharq al-Awsat.

Salam Anwar, an Iraqi living in Qatar, said: “We came this morning and queued in the sun with women and children and we were not allowed to vote.”

Meanwhile, hundreds of the estimated 200,000 Iraqis resident in Jordan also went to polling stations in the Kingdom on Sunday, according to Reuters.