Analysis: Iraq's political wrangling
March 11, 2005

By Jim Muir-BBC News:

Nearly six weeks after the general elections in Iraq, the country is still waiting for the formation of a new government.

The process has been embroiled in complex wrangling over the political platform of a new administration, as well as the allocation of top jobs.

The government will have to be a coalition because the Shia-dominated list, which won just over half the seats, needs a two-thirds majority in the new assembly to approve a new leadership.

The Shia bloc has been engaged in intensive negotiations with the Kurds, who came second.

Much has been agreed, but the deal is not yet finalised.

'Agreement close'

The newly-elected national assembly is scheduled to hold its inaugural session on Wednesday.

The hope is that agreement on the government will be finished by then so that parliament can elect its own speaker.

It will then choose a president and two-vice presidents who will nominate a prime minister, so that the whole agreed political package can fall into place.

But there is no guarantee that agreement will be finalised in time.

Both the Shia and the Kurds are reporting that much progress has been made. They hope an accord can be signed in a couple of days or so.

But some details in the political framework remain to be pinned down - and the tricky and potentially divisive business of distributing top jobs and ministries has not yet been tackled.

As one Kurdish negotiator put it, unless everything is agreed, nothing is agreed.

Kurdish worries

Behind the scenes, the Kurds are worried that once the coalition is formed, the Shia bloc, which commands just over half the seats in the new parliament, may try to use that simple majority to put through legislation that departs from the agreed platform, which is based on the transitional administrative law agreed by all sides last year.

The Kurds want a written commitment that if the government departs from agreed coalition policies, the coalition and government would fall.

They also want to pin down agreement on practical steps to implement agreed procedures for dealing with the situation of Kirkuk, the oil-rich province in the north which the Kurds would like to see attached to the area which they control.

As always, the devil is in the detail - and until every detail is agreed, nothing is completely certain.

Source Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4340155.stm