Yes, but there were slates of candidates that sounded an awful lot like the political arm of Al-Qaeda. All the parties that did well distanced themselves from Al-Qaeda and the Bathists.
Similar to the way the Palestinians distanced themselves from Fatah. The grass is always greener on the other side. They may have had enough of the particular dictatorship that they'd come to know and hate, but it remains to be seen whether they renounce dictatorship generally. And dictatorships get even harder to eradicate when they can plausibly claim a popular mandate. (and just to clear the air on this, "elected dictatorship" is not an oxymoron - just look at Venezuela)