DAMASCUS - Iraq's Sunni Arabs shed their political apathy and voted in force in polls that opened outside the country on Friday, ahead of a March 7 election. "We don't want our voice to go to waste again," said Haitham al-Saeed, who fled with his family five years ago to Syria from the district of Adhamiya in Baghdad as sectarian strife mounted. "I voted for the list I think is most likely to restore security to Iraq." Sunni Arabs, a generally privileged minority under Saddam Hussein's rule, were wary of taking part in votes held since the 2003 US-led invasion, allowing Shi'ites and Kurds to extend their political dominance of the post-Saddam era. The election for a new parliament will take place in Iraq on Sunday, but overseas voting began early in 16 countries. Judge Qasim al-Aboudi, a senior official of Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission, told a news conference in Baghdad that some 1.4 million expatriates were eligible to vote. An estimated two million Iraqi refugees have fled their homeland. The overseas voting was taking place in Jordan, Iran, Egypt, Sweden, the United States, Britain and other countries. No clear winner is expected, raising the importance of the exiled vote, especially in Syria, which hosts the largest concentration of Iraqi refugees outside their homeland. Former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shi'ite who heads a cross-sectarian list, and Vice-President Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni, visited Syria this week to get out the Sunni vote. "We voted for the Allawi list. We want security and not sectarianism," said Marwan Haitham, a Sunni engineer who cast ballots with his wife. The exercise in democracy is rare in the Arab world, where authoritarian rulers hold power and political systems ensure the marginalisation of non-government-backed candidates. At the Mezze polling station in Damascus, Iraqi voters were immaculately dressed and families cast ballots holding their children. Syrian forces guarded the premises where signs were written in Arabic and Kurdish, Iraq's two official languages. In Jordan, political analysts say most of the voting among the mainly Sunni Iraqi community is likely to go to the Iraqiya election coalition headed by Allawi. "At least Allawi is not a religious fanatic. We are tired of being ruled by turbans," said one voter, who declined to give his name. Former members of the Baath Party, which ruled Iraq from 1968 until Iraq fell to U.S. forces in 2003, said they would vote for Iraqiya.
