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Displaced Iraqis to cast ballots far from home
 
 
 
 
 
 
 By YAHYA BARZANJI,Associated Press Writer AP - 2 hours 26 minutes ago
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq - Sunni merchant Omar Waeel is too scared to return to his Baghdad home but wants to make sure his voice is heard in this week's Iraqi provincial elections.
Waeel, 50, is among more than 63,000 internally displaced people who have registered to vote by absentee ballot in Saturday's elections for ruling councils in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces.
Many of those who sought refuge in the generally peaceful areas of the Kurdish-run north expressed mixed feelings about whether the election will help the country overcome the ethnic and religions tensions that nearly erupted into full-scale civil war.
"I want to vote for a person who can separate state from religion, a person who does not think of sectarian politics," Waeel said at a recent voter education briefing. "I hope that by electing efficient, secular people to office, Iraq can move forward to be a better place."
He also worries that somebody would steal his vote if he doesn't use it.
"If I don't participate in the elections, my voice could be lost or exploited," he said.
Iraq has an estimated 2.8 million people living as refugees within their own land, nearly half having fled their homes amid rampant sectarian violence triggered by the February 2006 bombing of a Shiite mosque in Samarra. Another 2.4 million Iraqis have fled to other countries.
An estimated 290,000 have returned home, according to the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental humanitarian group based in Switzerland.
Most remain too fearful or lack the means to return to homes that have been devastated or occupied by squatters despite a dramatic drop in violence over the past year.
More than 49,000 displaced people have registered to vote in the semiautonomous Kurdish region and the nearby northern city of Kirkuk, said Amjad Rasoul, an electoral official in the Kurdish city of Irbil.
Waeel said he fled with his wife and four children to Sulaimaniyah, 160 miles northeast of Baghdad in 2006 after receiving a threat from Shiite militias.
He returns to the capital on a regular basis for business but cannot bring his family back because the Shiite extremist who threatened him remains at large.
"He still has influence in the government, not to mention the roadside bombs and car bombs that continue to explode in Baghdad on a daily basis," Waeel said, without identifying the man for fear of retribution.
Mohammed Jabar, 23, fled with his eight-member family from Jalula in Diyala province to Sulaimaniyah in 2006. He's hoping the new provincial council back home will restore security.
"I can't go back yet because violence has not stopped and the situation has not improved in Jalula," he said. "I will vote for the list that can restore peace and safety to people."
While some said they were hoping to change their situation, others planned to stay away from the polls, saying they were unable to learn about the candidates or were skeptical they could effect change.
Nadia Khaldoun, 37, is a Sunni Arab from Baghdad who lives with her husband and three children in a tent city on the outskirts of Sulaimaniyah.
She said the family left Baghdad in March 2006 after gunmen abducted her husband, releasing him only after she sold her jewelry to pay the ransom. She said the family tried to return home last year but fled again after learning the kidnappers had joined U.S.-allied Sunni groups called awakening councils.
"The elections won't change anything," Khaldoun said as she carried a gas cooking cylinder between tents. "What change can my vote bring to my miserable life?"
Refugees have begun to trickle home, with only 80 families left in the tent city that once housed 300, officials said. Those who remain are uncertain of the future.
Ali Hashim, 35, stopped an election worker from putting up a poster reading "Vote for a better future for your kids" on the wall of the tent he has called home since 2005, when he and his family fled Baghdad after his brother was kidnapped and killed by Shiite militias.
"What future? My child was born in the tent," he said, adding that he has no plans to vote.
Saleh Ali, 64, from Diyala province whose oldest son was killed last year, said life in the tent with his wife and two remaining children was difficult. But he was more optimistic.
"Life is very difficult in the tent, especially in the winter," he said. "I will go to the elections _ not to change my personal situation but to change the overall situation in Iraq."
 
 
 
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