Iraqi legislators thwarted Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's attempts to get approval for nominees to fill two vacant cabinet posts on Thursday, indicating deep political divisions remain despite falling sectarian violence.
Legislators from several parties boycotted the session, ensuring parliament did not have a quorum to vote on nominations for the justice and communications portfolios.
Infighting has paralysed both the cabinet and parliament this year, derailing efforts to get major laws passed that the United States considers important to help reconcile majority Shias and minority Sunni Arabs.
"Those two ministerial nominations were imposed without political consensus and consulting other parliament blocs," Noureddin al-Hayyali, a member of the main Sunni Arab bloc, the Accordance Front, told Reuters.
"If there is no political consensus, I think it will be hard to name new ministers." Other legislators said they did not object to the nominees, but had boycotted the session over rules that would allow the two candidates to be approved by less than half the 275-member parliament.
In fresh violence, 12 people were killed and 25 wounded when militants fired multiple Katyusha rockets at a village near the city of Baquba in Diyala province north of Baghdad, police said. They said about a dozen rockets hit the village of al-Salam, damaging at least five houses. US commanders say ethnically and religiously mixed Diyala is still one of the most violent areas of Iraq.
More than a dozen ministers have quit Maliki's Shia-led government this year, including several members of the Accordance Front who withdrew in August. Maliki's cabinet is now made up largely of Shia Muslims and Kurds.