Iraqi Vote Draws Big Turnout of Sunnis

By Ellen Knickmeyer and Jonathan Finer
The Washington Post

Friday 16 December 2005

Anti-US sentiment is motivator for many.

Baghdad - More than two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Sunni Arabs belatedly joined in force to build a new Iraq, walking to polls by the hundreds of thousands Thursday for national elections that drew a robust turnout from across the country's sectarian and ethnic divides.

The Sunni outpouring was a long hoped-for victory for the Bush administration, concluding a U.S.-planned timeline aimed at establishing a government that will hold together after U.S. troops withdraw. An overwhelming number of Sunnis made clear, however, that they were drawn to the polls by their dislike of the U.S. occupation and Iraq's U.S.-supported, Shiite-led transitional government.