Delays expected over appointments for top posts

Following the release of election results on 20 January, politicians are bracing themselves for delays as political rivals wrangle over the selection of a president and national assembly speaker. “The differences between ideologies and the difficulties promoted by Sunni leaders who insist on checking more ballots will delay the decision,” said Abbas al-Bayati, a senior official in the Shi'ite United Iraqi Alliance. A ten-day period for appealing initial election results began on 22 January, with final results expected on 3 February, according to the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI). The Shi'ite United Iraqi Alliance won 128 of the 275 seats in the national assembly, with Kurdish parties taking 53 and the main Sunni bloc 44 seats in the 15 December election. The national charter, which Iraqis approved by popular referendum in October, gives the new parliament a 15-day deadline to elect a speaker and president, who will in turn nominate a prime minister. The first parliamentary meeting is scheduled for mid-February. IECI Spokesperson Farid Ayar said the commission expects to receive numerous appeals in the coming days, which will delay the formation of a national assembly as each case must be “analysed carefully”. Sunni leaders maintain that some 70,000 cast ballots were lost due to fraud and that Sunni parties should have won more than the 55 seats captured in the 15 December vote. “We should have had at least 11 more seats in the assembly because the annulled voting boxes were situated in areas of Sunni predominance,” said Adnan al-Dulaimi, leader of the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front. Talks between representatives of the Shi’ite and Kurdish alliances were expected to begin on Wednesday, in the hope of reaching consensus on nominations for the presidency and prime minister. In accordance with the constitution, the president will be a Kurd and the prime minister a Shi’ite. Sunni leaders, however, insist they will join talks only after 21 cancelled ballot boxes have been examined and their appeals looked into. “We will receive all political groups with open arms, but we want those 70,000 annulled votes to be considered again,” al-Dulaimi said. “We will work together to show the government that they cannot work without our participation and experience.” Observers, meanwhile, are hoping that the inclusion of Sunni parties in the government will lead to an easing of the ongoing insurgency. "A repeat of the current Shi'ite-Kurdish alliance government will not solve Iraq's problems,” US Ambassador in Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad wrote in a statement recently. “Whereas a partnership with the Sunnis will undermine the insurgency and isolate the terrorists and Saddamists.” According to the constitution, the bloc with the third highest number of votes – the Sunni parties in this case – takes the position of either parliamentary speaker or vice-president.