Top News Article | Reuters.com: "BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Leading Sunni clerics declared on Wednesday any government emerging from Iraq's historic election would lack legitimacy because many people had boycotted a poll they said was tainted by a U.S.-led occupation.

Iraqis defied militants' threats and flocked to the polls on Sunday in the Shi'ite south and Kurdish north, but many in the central Sunni Arab heartland -- where the 22-month-old anti-American insurgency is strongest -- stayed home.

While the Bush administration insisted the election was conducted fairly and world leaders heaped praise on Iraqi voters, Iraq's Muslim Clerics' Association railed against the country's first multi-party ballot in half a decade.

'These elections lack legitimacy because a large segment of different sects, parties and currents ... boycotted,' the Sunni religious group said in a statement as the vote count proceeded.

'This means the coming national assembly and government that will emerge will not possess the legitimacy to enable them to draft the constitution or sign security or economic agreements.'

A sense of alienation among minority Sunni Arabs, who formed the backbone of Saddam Hussein's ruling class, poses a major challenge to Iraq's new leadership, which is certain to be dominated by members of the long-oppressed Shi'ite majority."

(Via Google News.)