Amman (AsiaNews) King Abdullah II congratulated the people of Iraq for Sunday's elections. In an interview on Jordanian television, he said: "I think everybody is very pleased with the turnout of the elections; it seemed to have been a very successful day for Iraqis."
The International Organisation of Migration (IOM) expects to have votes counted and sent to the headquarters of Iraq's Electoral Commission in Amman by February 5, which will then be sent to Baghdad where the government will declare the results no later than 15 February.
An IOM official, who preferred not to be named, told AsiaNews that counting errors are very unlikely and if do happen it won't be worse than in any other election worldwide.
The official confirmed that ballot boxes are under tight security day and night with arrangements made to avoid any sort of incident.
The IOM spent half of its budget of US$ 92 million on security and two of its officials received telephone bomb threats from unknown parties.
The IOM released final turnout figures for Iraqi voting abroad. A total of 265,148, representing 93.6 per cent of registered voters, cast their ballots in the 14 countries where the vote was held.
The highest turnout was in Turkey (96.5 per cent), followed by the Netherlands (96.2 per cent) and Canada (95.9 per cent).
The largest single group of Iraqi expatriates to vote was in Iran: 56,568 cast their ballot for 92.9 per cent of all registered voters. (ID)