Still no government

last updated 8 January 2015

Baghdad

The Iraqi National Assembly failed to fill its government posts again this week, when the Sunni candidate for parliament speaker withdrew his nomination. Under the bargain struck last week to apportion key posts by ethnicity, the parliament speaker is to be a Sunni, the president a Kurd, and the prime minister a Shiite. After the Sunni candidate declined the post, assembly members began shouting at one another. As the debate grew unseemly, officials cut off the live television feed and kicked out reporters. The assembly will try again next week. “We saw that things were confused today, so we gave them a last chance,” said Shiite legislator Hussein Sadr. “We expect the Sunni Arab brothers to nominate their candidate.”