Shia Nuri al-Maliki was re-nominated as Iraqi prime minister tonight as fractious politicians ended an eight-month deadlock that raised fears of renewed sectarian warfare.
A pact on top government posts reached late last night brought together Shia, Sunnis and Kurds in a power-sharing arrangement similar to the last Iraqi government, and could help prevent a slide back into the sectarian bloodshed that raged after the 2003 US-led invasion.
In a sign of turbulent relations between the partners, lawmakers from the Sunni-backed Iraqiya alliance of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi walked out of the parliamentary session at which Maliki was chosen for a second term.
Many Sunnis said they doubted Maliki could forge national unity.
‘Today is the day of victory. The victory of the true Iraqi will,’ re-elected President Jalal Talabani told parliament.
Celebratory gunfire rang out in the streets of Baghdad.
In its first steps to implement the deal, parliament met for only the second time since an inconclusive March election, electing Talabani, a Kurd, as president and Iraqiya lawmaker Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni, as speaker.
Talabani then nominated Maliki to form a new government. Under Iraqi law, he has 30 days.
The new parliament got off to a rocky start which could foreshadow problems for Maliki's second term.
About two-thirds of Iraqiya's 91 lawmakers, including Allawi, walked out before the start of the vote for president, saying they were angry that agreements between alliance leaders were not being honoured.
‘It is obvious that they want to monopolise power,’ prominent Sunni politician Saleh al-Mutlaq of Iraqiya said after the walkout.
‘Then I congratulate them for this power.’
Sunnis, dominant under Saddam Hussein, would have reacted with outrage had Iraqiya been excluded from government. Some may still feel cheated because of Maliki's return.
OPEC member Iraq, trying to rebuild its oil industry after decades of war and economic sanctions and to quell a stubborn Sunni Islamist insurgency, has been without a new government since an election on 7 March failed to produce a clear winner.
‘The most important issue now is that we are out of the bottleneck,’ said Amer al-Fayyadh, the dean of political science at Baghdad University.
‘The formation of a government is now in sight.’
