LONDON, Jan 17 (AFP) - From Sydney to London via Tehran, up to a million Iraqis scattered around the world on Monday began registering to vote in their country's upcoming general elections in a drive coordinated by the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration (IOM).
"We estimate up to a million people in the 14 host countries could register" for the landmark elections slated for January 30, said Peter Erben, speaking for the organization in Amman.
"This is a beautiful day," said Mohammed Kamal, 18, who registered to vote "for democracy" in Amman.
Iraqis abroad over the age of 18 will be able to vote for a 275-seat provisional national assembly, while those in the country will also be able to vote for 18 provincial councils and a parliament for the semi-autonomous Kurdish region.
More than 1,000 Iraqis in Australia were the first to register to vote Monday and, Erben said, "the feedback is good."
In Syria, home to about 400,000 Iraqis, of whom half were potentially eligible to vote, the registration began amid tight security, with voters being closely searched at the entrance to polling centers.
Ten schools in the Damascus region served as electoral centers, and a nationwide information campaign was launched to inform people about the vote. IOM representative Luis Martinez-Betanzos said more than 1,000 Iraqis had been "intensively trained" to oversee the process.
Up to 150,000 Iraqis were eligible to vote in Britain, where some 500 Iraqi citizens have been trained to carry out the registration between Monday and January 23, and then watch over the voting process at 70 polling stations from January 28 to 30.
"Everything is running really very smoothly," said an IOM spokeswoman, Kirsten Ainsworth, at a registration point in Wembley, northwest London, where several hundred people including families with children turned up.
"Perfect, nice, excellent -- everybody happy," was how election volunteer Samir Ibrahim described the occasion.
"I'm feeling strong, confident about this election," said Kasim Murthada from Wales, where Iraqis were planning to hire four buses to take them to a registration center in London at the weekend. "This is the first opportunity to the Iraqis to be united, really. I think it is a big opportunity. We are going to work for a united Iraq and democratic future, a better future for the next generations."
Iraqis interviewed by AFP in Amman said they hoped their vote would open a new page in the history of their embattled country, following decades of dictatorship.
But the escalating violence cast a shadow over the organization of the election in Iraq itself, where insurgents sought to derail the process.
"We want to turn the page on the past. We seek democracy, security, an end to dictatorship and to unemployment," said Faysal Shaker Janabi, a father of three who traveled with his wife to register in a high school in Amman.
"This is the happiest day of my life because this election will decide our fate," said Janabi, who left Iraq for Jordan two months ago to undergo heart surgery in Amman.
Zena Muwaffeq, a young heart surgeon who fled Iraq 35 days ago when the hospital where she worked in the northern Iraqi town of Tikrit got hit, said she hoped elections would restore security "so that I can return one day".
In Dubai, Muna al-Saffar, a 44-year-old physician declined to give her religion at a tent-like registration center. "I refuse to answer this question. I am a Muslim, an Iraqi," she said when asked if she was Shiite or Sunni.
Jamal Amin explained that it was false to claim that Sunnis were boycotting the election. "The Sunnis too are keen to vote," said the 41-year-old Shiite.
Qassem al-Sarraf, a physician who came from the Gulf emirate of Sharjah to register along with a group of black-clad veiled women, said sectarian divisions had never existed in Iraq, and many Sunnis were standing as candidates without trumpeting their affiliation.
Some 80,000 Iraqis were expected to register in the Swedish cities of Stockholm and Gothenburg, but organisers in Stockholm said some Iraqis might find it hard to produce the required two pieces of identification because they lost their papers while fleeing to Sweden.
In Germany, the first of the 65,000 Iraqis expected to vote began registering at election centers in Berlin, Munich, Cologne and Mannheim.
Three centers opened for the benefit of 33,000 potential voters in the Netherlands, in addition to Iraqis in Belgium and parts of Germany.The offices were in well-protected sites and placed under heavy guard.
In Denmark, the government offered to pay the travel costs of about 15,000 Iraqis eligible to vote, and officials handed a bunch of flowers to the first woman to register.
01/17/2005 15:29 GMT - AFP