Region | Iraq
Iraq impasse drags on a month after polls
Feuding politicians have not even started discussing the modalities of forming a governing coalition, Allawi says
- AP
- Published: 00:00 April 9, 2010
- Image Credit: AP
- Former prime minister Eyad Allawi has pointed to insurgents exploiting a power vacuum and said it can take anywhere from two to five months for Iraq's fractious parties to form a unity government.
Baghdad: A secular Shiite vying to become Iraq's next prime minister said that the country's feuding politicians have not even started discussing how to form a government a month after elections failed to produce a clear winner.
It could take anywhere from two to five months to cobble together a new governing coalition out of Iraq's fractious parties, during which time insurgents are taking advantage of a "power vacuum" to carry out bloody attacks like those that have killed some 100 people since Friday, Eyad Allawi said.
"We haven't gotten to the discussion phase yet, how to form a government, when and by whom," Allawi said in his office in Baghdad, with the Iraqi flag hanging behind his chair.
Allawi's bloc came out ahead in the vote by two seats over Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki's coalition, but both parties are far short of the necessary majority needed to govern alone. The candidates are now scrambling to muster the support needed to form a government.
Al Maliki, who has led a government dominated by religious Shiites for the past four years, has adamantly refused to accept the results of the election — even though international observers said the vote was fair — and is pursuing a number of avenues to ensure that he is chosen to form the next government.
"Democracy is being raped in Iraq," said Allawi, a Shiite by birth with wide support in the Sunni community. He is seen by many as the man who can overcome Iraq's deep sectarian divide after years of bloodshed.
Bloodshed
Dressed in a conservative brown suit and sounding increasingly frustrated with his main political opponent, Allawi said he fears more bloodshed lies ahead "because people are sensing there are powers who want to obstruct the path of democracy — terrorists and Al Qaida have been on the go."
Allawi said he still has not spoken to Al Maliki personally, although there is "very preliminary dialogue" between the two blocs.
Once a member of Saddam Hussain's Baath Party, Allawi turned exiled dissident and in 1978 fought off an axe-wielding assassin believed to be sent by the Iraqi government.
Allawi said he thinks of that attack every day. His right leg still aches where the limb was almost severed. It's a reminder, he says, that he is always "pursued".
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