Iraqis brave blasts to vote for ‘change’

BAGHDAD: Braving the daily bombings that have scattered his 12 grandsons across Europe, Jawad Said Kamal Al-Din, 91, hobbled to a Baghdad polling station on Wednesday to vote for “change.”
At a VIP polling station in the capital’s heavily fortified Green Zone, where reporters and photographers far outnumbered voters, Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki proclaimed “certain” victory as he cast his ballot.
But at the west Baghdad primary school where Kamal Al-Din cast his vote, he and others queuing were adamant they wanted change after eight years of Maliki’s rule.
They accused the premier of doing little to improve public services, curb rampant corruption or tackle the country’s worst violence in years.
The threat of car bombs prompted authorities to impose a polling day ban on all vehicle traffic in and around the capital, forcing voters to walk to the polls.
On the streets around the improvised polling station where Kamal Al-Din was helped in by staff, the only vehicles belonged to the police or army. The pensioner said he hoped to see an entirely new government elected to address the multiple problems that have scattered his grandsons cross Austria, Britain, Germany and Sweden.
“I hope that Iraq has a safe future, and that unemployment is tackled, and industry, agriculture and trade return to their original stature, instead of just relying on oil,” Kamal Al-Din said.
“I hope to change all the current politicians, especially members of parliament, because they are thieves and are looting the country’s money.”
In the main southern city of Basra, civil servant Adel Salim Khudayr, 52, said he wanted Wednesday to be “a day of change, so there will not be any dictatorship to govern Iraq.”