Iraqi President Jalal Talabani asked Shia politician Jawad al-Maliki to head postwar Iraq's first full-term government this afternoon, after four months of deadlock.
"I would like to inform the brothers and sisters that we decided unanimously to endorse our dear brother Nouri Jawad al-Maliki to head the cabinet," Mr Talabani said in parliament.
Mr Maliki, who was the ruling Shia Alliance's nomination for prime minister, is a decisive and tough figure who now faces the challenge of forming a national unity government seen as the best way of averting a sectarian civil war.
It will be a sensitive task, especially when it comes to the strategic, Shia-dominated interior and defence ministries accused by Arab Sunni leaders of sanctioning militia death squads, a charge denied by Shia leaders.