Will Secular Parties gain Upper Hand in Iraq?

Yet the country’s situation is significantly volatile. After Abadi put forward his list of technocratic candidates, a number of Islamist parties, including the Islamic Virtue Party, directed several accusations at the candidates, including that some of them were Baathists or Salafists, and that, in the end, they are unfit to take ministerial posts.

Objections to the technocrat list led to an internal consensus among a number of Islamist parties — including the Badr bloc, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and the National Forces Alliance — to put forward a new list of ministers on the basis of partisan quotas among themselves.

The agreement was called an honor document and was signed by President Fuad Masum, parliament Speaker Salim al-Jabouri and Prime Minister Abadi, in addition to Islamist party leaders Ammar al-Hakim, Hadi al-Amiri, Osama al-Nujaifi, Hussain al-Shahristani, Saleh al-Mutlaq, Jamal al-Karbouli, Hashem al-Hashemi and Faleh al-Fayad.

After the new agreement was announced, the members of parliament of the State of Law Coalition, which is led by Maliki, and other parliamentarians held a sit-in in parliament, demanding the dismissal of Masum, Jabouri and Abadi, in preparation for a new agreement among parliamentary blocs to ensure the coalition a share in the next government.