Over 4,600 Iraqi expats in UAE register to vote

Over 4,600 Iraqi expats in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have registered to vote, local Khaleej Times daily reported Saturday.

Nicola Baldwin, UAE's country chief of External Relations for Iraq's Out-of-Country Voting Program, told the press there have been 4,627 registered Iraqi voters in the UAE by Jan. 21.

The registration period in the UAE is set from Jan. 17 to 23, a week before the scheduled Iraqi elections on Jan. 30.

There are two designated polling and registration stations in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, two emirates of the UAE, and the opening time is from 8 a.m. (0400 GMT) to 7 p.m (1500 GMT) daily.

By now, a total of 68,027 Iraqis living abroad have registered to vote for the elections from 14 selected countries around the world.

In Iran alone, a country with a sizable Iraqi expatriate population, 15,138 Iraqis have registered as voters.

Once successfully registered, Iraqis will be issued a registration receipt that they must present on the polling day with a photo ID, and they must return to the same location where they registered to cast their votes.

Source: Xinhua