AFTER three months of political wrangling and increasing violence, Iraq’s first democratically elected Government was announced yesterday, but several Cabinet posts remained vacant after a Sunni faction withdrew at the last minute.

While the list of ministers presented by Ibrahim Jaafari, the Shia Prime Minister-designate, eased a political stalemate, there were doubts that the Government can meet an August deadline to complete its main task of drafting a constitution. Only then can fresh elections be held in December.

“The journey was full of blood, words, sweat and tears until this day, when our people gave you their trust to carry out this responsibility,” Mr Jaafari told parliament. His Cabinet was approved by 180 votes to 5.

Abdelaziz al-Hakim, the leader of the most powerful Shia party now holding sway in parliament, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), said that the first task of the Government would be to “fight back against terrorists and root them out”.

Officials said that they would make a concerted effort to expel suspected insurgent infiltrators working within the security system. The insurgency, mainly fuelled by extremist Sunni groups and former regime loyalists, has flourished during months of haggling over the division of key ministries among the Shia and Kurds who won the January elections. Much of the delay was caused by efforts to find Sunnis in the N ational Assembly who could actually represent their people in western Iraq’s violent cities, where insurgents act at will and where voting was almost non-existent.

Meshaan al-Jebouri, a Sunni member who was one of the few to vote against the Cabinet list, said that those Sunnis given posts had no local standing and were token figures. “This is a Government of sectarian alienation,” he said.

Before the vote, a senior Shia official affiliated to Iyad Allawi, the outgoing Prime Minister, said that most MPs had little idea about the backgrounds of the ministers they being asked to approve.

Even Ghazi al-Yawer, the new Vice-President, said that he was unhappy with the sectarian allotment, adding: “But we have to wait until all the nominations are permanent before we do anything.”

To underscore the difficulties of building national unity, a Sunni bloc, which was not represented in parliament but which had been invited to join the Government in an attempt to defuse the insurgency, pulled out at the last minute.

Saleh al-Mutlak, spokesman for the Sunni National Dialogue Council, accused Mr Jaafari of reneging on a pledge to sign a political statement that would recognise the right of Sunnis to resist foreign troops, release prisoners and halt a clampdown on former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party, which the main Shia parties are intent on carrying out.

“The political statement is more important for us than the ministerial posts as it guaranteed security and stability for the Government,” Mr al- Mutlak said. The abrupt withdrawal left the Defence Ministry — which has been earmarked for a Sunni — vacant, while Mr Jaafari also failed to present ministers for the Oil and Electricity ministries, as well as Industry and Human Rights.

Instead, he said that he would assume the post of acting Defence Minister, with the Oil Ministry going to Ahmad Chalabi, a one-time favourite of the Pentagon who fell out with Washington over alleged links to Tehran’s intelligence service. The former banker, wanted in neighbouring Jordan on corruption charges, is to be one of four Deputy Prime Ministers.

That parliament has taken three months of its eleven-month term just to form an incomplete Cabinet prompted doubts among some delegates that it can write a constitution by its deadline of August 15. Jacqueline Zomaya, a Christian deputy, said: “I hope we can meet the date, but practically speaking I think we will need an extension.”

But Sheik Houmam Bakr Hamoudi, a senior Sciri official, said his party wanted the basic law to be little more than a modified version of the transitional constitution drafted with the help of America, and which is widely seen as a resolutely secular document matching Western standards. In that case, he said, the deadline could be met.

Outside parliament, violence claimed at least 17 more lives, including an intelligence adviser in the Interior Ministry, who was shot dead on his way to work in Baghdad.

In Tikrit, Saddam’s home town, a car bomb exploded, killing two Iraqi soldiers and wounding three Americans. The former dictator, meanwhile, celebrated his 68th birthday, his second in US custody.

THE NEXT STEPS

• The Government must form a constitutional drafting committee bringing in all religious and ethnic groups
  
  
• The constitution must be ready by August 15
  
  
• If the committee believes that it cannot make that deadline, it must submit an application for a six-month extension before August 1
  
  
• If there is no delay, the constitution will be put to a referendum in October
  
  
• New elections, based on the sovereign constitution, are due in December

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