Baghdad’s children dip their fingers in voting ink

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Defying instructions by the Baghdad Operations Command (BOC) not to take children to the voting centers, some of the young ones went, but only to color their fingers with the indelible voting ink in imitation of their elders. “My five-year-old protested staying at home and insisted on coming with us to the ballot centers, not giving much interest to other kids’ plans to play football in the streets that were empty of cars due to the traffic ban,” Umm Ahmed, a local resident of the New Baghdad area, told IraqiNews.com news agency. Voting centers in Baghdad and other 13 provinces started at 07:00 a.m. Baghdad local time to receive eligible voters who are electing their candidates to occupy all 440 seats in local councils amidst blanket security measures. Umm Ahmed pointed out that her son colored his fingers with the voting ink to pompously boast among his peers that he was the only kid in the family who was allowed to cast his vote. Nearly 2.5 million voters in Baghdad went to 998 centers or 6,993 stations, in central, eastern, southern, and northeastern Baghdad to cast their ballots for their candidates running in the country’s provincial council elections. Arwa Yassin, a woman who was standing in a queue to cast her vote, said her four-year-old daughter Shahd has been preparing herself for days for the elections and always asked when they should go. “My daughter was groomed and dandified since Friday (Jan. 30) to prepare for the elections. She even made us promise not to go without her. She only wanted to play with the voting ink,” said a smiling Yassin. Essam Mohammed, 12, told IraqiNews.com “the elections day was a very good chance for us to play football on the streets that is devoid of vehicles.” “I don’t care about the elections. It is an adult’s business. I only know that voters have to choose from one of the photos stuck on the walls,” Mohammed said. A teammate of Mohammed’s rushed him to return to the game, saying “I will never participate in the elections. My father says it’s useless.”