O poder (de) escolher

As últimas notícias dão conta de que votaram mais iraquianos sunitas do que os mais pessimistas antecipavam. Os que optaram por não votar, fizeram-no por receio das ameaças dos terroristas, esses heróicos resistentes defensores do extremismo ditatorial do medo, de perseguir e decapitar quem se atrevesse a aproximar de uma urna. Não foi coisa pouca, a coragem de quem votou, de quem decidiu participar na escolha do futuro do país. Estes sim, são os heróis da resistência - ao terror.

"The UN's senior election official in Iraq, Carlos Valenzuela, told BBC News he was pleased that more people than expected "defied the threat of violence to go and vote". He said a precise turnout figure would not be known for several weeks, but it appeared higher numbers of Sunnis than expected turned out to vote." via BBC

"Still, election officials said voting in the Sunni-dominated provinces had appeared to exceed initial expectations, and in some cases might reach 40 percent. In Mosul, a Sunni-majority city and the scene of heavy fighting in recent weeks, Western reporters saw voters in Sunni neighborhoods lined up outside polling stations."via NYTimes

"But both the violence and the Sunni turnout proved to be the wild cards. After a slow start, growing numbers voted in heavily Sunni districts of the capital, including Khadra, Tunis and parts of Adhamiyah, residents said. Crowds in Baqubah, a mixed Sunni-Shiite town northeast of Baghdad, gathered with their children before polls opened and waited for tardy election workers as mortar shells detonated in the distance. In the northern city of Mosul, scene of some of the fiercest fighting in recent months, turnout grew among both Sunni Arabs and ethnic Kurds as intense attacks failed to materialize" via Washington Post