What comes next after Iraq vote?

Early results from Iraq's second election for a full-term parliament since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion were not expected for a day or two. There was no immediate word on turnout.

Minority Sunnis did not spurn the poll, but it was not clear if their votes would be enough to give the upper hand to the secular, Shi'ite-Sunni list of former Premier Iyad Allawi.

Contenders are already positioning themselves to claim victory or to cry foul. Political factions will soon start trying to woo rivals to their side. And horse-trading to form the next government could take weeks, if not months, creating a potentially dangerous political vacuum.

Political Vacuum

Drawn-out coalition negotiations may lead to an absence of governance that a weakened but still deadly Sunni Islamist insurgency could exploit to try to reignite sectarian war.

Outgoing Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will stay on as head of a caretaker administration until a new government is formed. The caretaker administration will pay public sector wages, but will not have the power to propose new laws or sign contracts.

The inability of Iraq's last parliament to agree on a new government for five months in 2006 gave al-Qaida and other Sunni insurgents and Shi'ite militia such as the Mehdi army space to operate and grow, setting the stage for sectarian slaughter.

Al-Qaida and its Iraqi offshoot, the Islamic State of Iraq, have been weakened by a decision by Sunni tribal chiefs to turn against them, a surge in 2007 in U.S. troops deployed to Iraq and the growing capabilities of Iraqi security forces.

They can still launch devastating attacks, as they proved with coordinated assaults by suicide bombers on public buildings and hotels in Baghdad in August, October, December and January.

Mortar, rocket and bomb strikes as voting began on Sunday killed 38 people in or near the capital, but Gala Riani, an analyst with IHS Global Insight, said the attacks “were those of an insurgency struggling to make its capacity known, not one capable of derailing the vote.”

Nevertheless, a strike against a major Shi'ite shrine, for example, could spark chaos in the absence of a fully-fledged government.

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