Iraq's vicious vacuum

The Iraq election has shored up the country's fragile democracy but the months ahead are fraught with potential dangers more worrying than the bombs that echoed through Baghdad as voters went to the polls. With their second national election since Saddam Hussain was toppled behind them, Iraqi politicians' attention has turned to what sort of alliances are likely to be forged to form a new government — which could take well into early summer.

The crucial player

None of the parties by themselves are powerful enough to form a government. Preliminary results, based on 60 per cent of ballots counted in Baghdad, showed Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki's State of Law Alliance held a 65,000-vote lead over Iyad Allawi's Iraqiya bloc with the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), a coalition of Shiite religious groups, a distant third, said AFP.

The major Kurdish parties are expected to play a key role in building or breaking any coalition. "The Kurds can play a very important role," said Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish regional government. "We are not going to decide until after the elections on how to be part of the alliances because there are many important issues we should negotiate."

He said that included the commitment of any potential coalition parties to solving the issue of Kirkuk, the disputed oil-rich city which Kurds claim as their historic capital.

Any alliances appear possible, but one that relies on the Kurds to cement Allawi's list could be problematic. That list includes the Mosul-based party Al Hadbaa, which came to power in the provincial elections last year on what was seen as an anti-Kurdish platform.

The time it will take to form a new government is another worry. According to the constitution, a new government should be formed a month after election results are certified — in this case towards the end of April. "I am concerned that there will be a constitutional vacuum when the council [of representatives] ends this period," said Iyad Al Samurai, speaker of the present parliament, in an interview shortly before the election. He said the alternative is to give the Iraqi president more emergency powers or have the federal court decide how to handle a constitutional vacuum.

Slipping turnout

Election officials said 62 per cent of Iraq's 18 million registered voters cast their ballots. In Baghdad, where a morning of explosions and widespread voter cynicism appeared to have affected the turnout, that percentage fell to a little over 50 per cent. The figures are a contrast to the more than 78 per cent of voters who cast their ballots in the first parliamentary elections in 2005.

"I think these elections reinforced the idea that although this has been traumatic for the American people and the Iraqi people, it hasn't been a waste of time," says Scott Carpenter, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a conservative think-tank.