THE SECURING by Nouri al-Maliki of a new bloc of parliamentary support should be sufficient to win him nomination for a second four-year term as prime minister of Iraq, breaking a deadlock that has left the country with only an ill-functioning caretaker government since elections in March. The creaking regime under Mr Maliki has found it difficult to take decisions just as parliament has been unable to pass crucial legislation or treaties. Its members have met only once – in June – for less than 18 minutes (though they are collecting their $10,000-a-month salaries).
But the decision by a group of Shia parties, not least that of its largest component led by former militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, finally to endorse a Maliki government is likely to entrench and even deepen sectarian tensions in the country and the sense in its Sunni population that it is excluded from power. It will be far from the “inclusive” government which Mr Maliki is still promising and which international observers believe is crucial. The Sadrists’ involvement is also seen as providing a strong influence for Iran.
However, Mr Maliki is not there yet. He needs a commitment from Kurdish parties to get a clear majority. They offered yesterday to open talks, although on conditions that are likely to prove difficult. Critical will be a dispute over oil contracts which the Kurdish regional government insists should be part of its remit, and which has halted exports from the region. They also want the government to finance the peshmerga, the Kurdish military.
Baghdad on Sunday postponed its first full census in more than two decades precisely to avoid triggering open conflict with the Kurds over the population distributions in Nineveh province and Kirkuk.
Among other Kurdish demands, shared by the US, are that a Maliki government should also include Iraqiya, the cross-sectarian alliance headed by former prime minister Iyad Allawi. It won 91 seats in the election, two more than Maliki’s National Alliance. Allawi, a Shia who won strong Sunni backing, has attracted support from smaller parties from both communities but between them they do not come close to a majority in the 325-seat chamber. Meanwhile, the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq, a Sunni organisation, has attacked Maliki’s sectarianism as a mirror image of the Sunni domination of Iraq under Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. “Iraq’s fate”, the organisation warns in a statement, “is at a tipping point”.