Iraq's fractious politicians have agreed to return Shia Nuri al-Maliki as prime minister, ending an eight-month deadlock that raised fears of renewed sectarian war, but leaving some Sunnis sceptical he can forge national unity. In a first step to implement the deal, lawmakers met on Thursday and elected Sunni legislator Osama al-Nujaifi as speaker of parliament.
The pact on top government posts brings together Shias, 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.
Sunnis, dominant under Saddam Hussein, would have reacted with outrage had the Sunni-backed Iraqiya alliance of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi been excluded from government. Some may still feel cheated because of Maliki's return. Under the deal, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, will retain the presidency and other Iraqiya members will be given cabinet jobs, such as that of foreign minister. Allawi himself will head a council of strategic policies.
"Thank God last night we made a big achievement, which is considered a victory for all Iraqis," Kurdish regional president Masoud Barzani said at a news conference in Baghdad.
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 March 7 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."
The session of parliament on Thursday was just the second in more than eight months since the vote. After picking Nujaifi as speaker, lawmakers must choose a president who in turn nominates a prime minister, who has 30 days to form a government.
Allawi pushed hard to displace Maliki as prime minister after Iraqiya won two seats more than Maliki's coalition in the vote. Allawi has said Sunni anger might have reinvigorated the insurgency had his alliance been sidelined. The distribution of the top posts along ethnic and sectarian lines was a reflection of the divisions that define Iraq after more than seven years of warfare unleashed by the US invasion.
Washington formally ended combat in August but 50,000 US troops remain to advise and assist the nascent army and police before a full withdrawal next year. Overall violence has fallen sharply since the height of sectarian slaughter in 2006-2007, but killings and bombings still occur daily, followed every few weeks by a major, devastating assault by insurgents in which dozens are killed.
Tension mounted as Maliki and Allawi wrestled over power. Rockets and mortars were fired at Baghdad's fortified Green Zone district of government offices in the past few days and insurgents killed dozens of people in an attack on a Catholic church and on Shia areas of the capital.
Maliki's return is likely to anger Sunni hard-liners, who abhor what they see as Iran's influence over Iraq's Shia leaders and his Islamist background, and Sunni Islamist insurgents, who view Shias as apostates. While the deal created a job for Allawi and gave Iraqiya a controlling position in parliament, some Sunnis may still feel marginalised, as they did after the previous election in 2005.
"In one way or another, we have the same atmosphere as in 2005 when Sunnis felt they were misrepresented in government, which in turn contributed to instability," said Yahya al-Kubaisy, a researcher at the Iraq Institution for Strategic Studies. He called Allawi's new job a "face-saving measure".
Despite political squabbles and continuing violence that has unsettled some foreign investors, global oil majors are working to crank up production in Iraq's vast oilfields. Officials hope to raise production capacity to 12 million barrels per day from 2.5 million now, vaulting Iraq into the top echelon of world producers.