“Our driver thus wentto park his bus in the carpark which was reserved to him and where he slept during hours! Indeed he deserved it, it is very tiring to drive by night.
We moved towards the office of vote.There was almost there, only Arab Shiites, 6 or 7 persones maximum. They stuck small posters for the 555 list, I believe. They greeted us. On somewalls, there were posters of the Allawi List (731). But no poster for the Kurdish list and no Kurdish in the place, except us.
Honestly, at this moment, I was a little disappointed to see noone and I even wondered if my displacement was worth the sorrow. We nevertheless moved towards the entry of the building to go to vote. The building in question was in fact either a gymnasium, or a park of exposure. It was rather large. Two corridors were arranged, with a length of 100 meter for each one, approximately. One of the corridors was for entering in the building, the other to leave it.
We presented ourselves front of the corridor of entry and underwent a first control, in particular the metal detector and an identity check. After this first step, we had to move towards the entry of the building, for the 2nd control. It was necessary here to switch off our handphones and to entrust them to a person who gave us a number to recover them after the vote. Moreover, someone of our group forgot to recover his phone and could not come back in the building. He had protested in vain, it was a strict NO. We had also to deposit our bags.
Then a 3rd control, with the metal detector once again.
Finally we arrived front of 2 people who give numbers to each voter. These numbers went from 1 to 20, I believe, and corresponded in fact to the stands. I think that was to avoid congestions. I had the number 15 and I thus moved towards the stand corresponding to this number. There I saw 4 or 5 people who awaited the voters. They told me welcome and requested to present myself front of the first person. It was a Kurdish girl whot asked me an identity paper and asked some questions. The 2nd person, still a woman, indicated my name, first name, date and birthplace on a register. Finally a3rd person, an Arab (sunnit? shiit?) said something but I did not understand anything! He asked me in English if I spoke Arab. I answered him “No I don’t, sorry”. He seemed surprised by my answer. I think that he had often heared “No sorry” the same day! But he had a friendly face. He asked me to sign a document and explained how the vote was going to proceed. Then he gave me 4 large sheets containing the names and numbers of each list. I entered inside a temporary but effective polling booth. The list for which I voted was reproduced on the last sheet (I let to you guess which…))
Finally the crucial moment, the presentation to the ballot box. We had to take only the sheet on which the list that we chose was reproduced. But sheets were so large that we should fold into 4, too put them in the ballot box!
It wa still a woman, a Dutchwoman perhaps, who managed this step. She asked me to put my finger in a rotten violet ink that I still could not get rid of… grrr… Once my finger was really disgusting, she required of me to put the bulletin in the ballot box. It was the first time in my life that I voted as “an Iraqi citizen”.
Whereas I took the exit of the building and then the corridor of exit, a woman called me and asked me some questions in English. She was an international observeur. She wanted to know from where I was originating, if I had encountered particular problems, if I were glad to have voted (what aquestion!), with how much people I had come etc… It was a charming little woman…
And then I went out by the long corridor to join the others. Some had already finished but we still did not see any Kurds around. We waited until everyone finished to debate the program of the day together, because our driver slept deeply in his bus during this time. We have all finished to vote at 09h00 a.m. It was thus necessary to find an occupation until 3h00 pm. We could not stay there, under the rain and the cold.
[…] (To be continued… Part II) […]