Iraq Stumbles into Month 5 With no New Government

Baghdad - is hopeful that the Iraqi parliament can convene this week fell, except on Monday as the country stumbled into five months without a new government of Prime Minister and hitting a brick wall with its nominal Shiite allies, some of which are greatly against him staying in his post.
Leaders of major political blocs met Wednesday in a last attempt to find common ground, but without any resolution to fill top posts in sight, they decided to postpone the next meeting in two weeks, the acting parliament speaker Fouad Massoum said.
That means more backroom negotiations Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is trying to cobble together a coalition that returned him to a new term, and press its rivals step down for him, all against the background of U.S. military plans to withdraw all combat forces. September and all the forces by the end of next year.
Shiite parties appeared to have made a breakthrough in early May, when al-Maliki State Law and the Iraqi National Alliance, a Shiite alliance backed by Iran, said the coalition that seemed to give them the confidence to form a government. But they have since been deadlocked over al-Maliki, as some Ina members staunchly refused a new term.
"They seem to completely stalemated, and they completely stalemated, because no one wants to be Prime Minister Maliki," said Marina Ottoway, from the Washington-based Carnegie endowment for Peace.
That a deadlock, so tough, the Prime Minister is now flirting its archrival, Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite who heads the main Sunni coalition, Iraqiya. But that political combination has its own challenges.
TO be sure, no one is thinking of seating a new government will be easy.
Disputed election results created a struggle: Iraqiya narrowly edged out of the state Coalition, 91 seats to 89, a March 7 election shocker, a celebrated Iraqi Sunni community. But very far from the necessary 163-seat majority.
Parliament held its inaugural session on June 14, but mostly symbolic and ended after less than 20 minutes.
Under Iraq's constitution, legislature should have chosen a president and parliament speaker, but these appointments had to be postponed because they are part of the negotiations between the main political blocs over the rest of the new leadership, including Prime Minister and senior government officials.
Members of the Iraqi National Alliance, which includes followers of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, are categorically against the "continued Al Maliki as prime minister. Al-Maliki is imprisoned thousands of supporters of al-Sadr during the US-Iraqi offensives in their strongholds in Basra and Baghdad's Sadr City.
Shiite bloc that was more about keeping Allawi - to force, rather than any desire to work together, said Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish politician.
"To be honest, things are not clear and no one knows if they (the alliances) can reach an agreement or not», Othman said Monday.
Alliance officials said the two parties other objections, al-Maliki included poor relations with the Arab world and the tendency to act without consulting others outside his inner circle, pushing members of his Dawa Party in government posts to appoint members of the armed forces loyal to him.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because sensitive negotiations.
"There are many grudges against him," said Ottoway.
But these complaints against Al Maliki also said a little sour grapes by political leaders, who probably also want the opportunity to put their own people power. And the prime minister was lauded for Basra and Sadr City offensives as a sign he is ready to go after Shiite militias as much as Sunni militias.
Prominent Dawa party, Abdul-Hadi al-Hassani, acknowledged the opposition al-Maliki's nomination, but said the Prime Minister, was employed "by the Constitution and the law."
The political drama has led to speculation al-Maliki ethnic Instead Allawi to form a coalition. The two met on June 29, their second meeting since the election in what was viewed as a review of al-Maliki in his Shiite allies.
"It is possible that Iraqiya-bloc state law may occur if the negotiations are going on, as positive as they are now,« Iraqiya spokesman Abdul Rahman Al Bayder said.
But any agreement between the Iraqiya state law that requires that either Allawi or al-Maliki - or both - refused their application for the Prime Minister. No one seems to want to do that, despite the political analyst Kazim al-Muqdadi from Baghdad University, said al-Maliki may be ready to Iraqiya key ministries, as long as he gets the top job.