Analysis: A row over appointment of a prime minister is delaying the inauguration of the new Iraqi parliament, writes Michael Jansen.
Iraq's president Jalal Talabani has been forced to delay the inaugural session of the new parliament from tomorrow until March 19th because of a dispute over the Shia bloc's renomination of incumbent prime minister Ibrahim Jaafari.
Dr Jaafari refuses to withdraw and the Shia United Iraqi Alliance, the largest grouping in the assembly, continues to back him. Kurds, Sunnis and secularists demand the Shia put forward another name.
His opponents can stymie the formation of a government by denying the two-thirds majority needed to elect a president, the first step in this process.
Two factions of the Shia United Iraqi Alliance, Dr Jaafari's Dawa party and the followers of the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, called for postponement. Under instruction from Shia Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the other two factions, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and Fadhila, went along to maintain solidarity.
Both SCIRI and Fadhila have their own compromise candidates.
The Kurds are determined to oust Dr Jaafari. He has obstructed their drive to take control of the oil-rich Kirkuk province by flooding it with Kurds at the expense of its Arab and Turkomen inhabitants.
Mr Talabani is also furious with Dr Jaafari because he held discussions with the Turkish government about the Kurds' intentions in Kirkuk and because of his insistence that Iraq should be a federal state with a weak central government.
Mr Talabani accuses Dr Jaafari of negotiating a secret deal with the Turks to thwart Kurdish ambitions in Iraq.
The Sunni Accord Front and the secular Iraqi National Party and National Dialogue Front claim Dr Jaafari is a weak premier and blame him for the takeover of the security services by Shia and Kurdish militias.
However, it is unlikely that any other figure could have done better and SCIRI's Bayan Jabr, the interior minister, not Dr Jaafari, packed the army and police with militiamen.
Dr Jaafari supports Sunni and secularist demands for curbing the Kurds and a strong central government and can be expected to support their call for constitutional amendments.
Dawa and the Sadrists put Dr Jaafari forward for this reason. If these parties stood together they would have more than the 184 votes needed to choose a president who would appoint Dr Jaafari.
But if Mr Talabani manages to oust Dr Jaafari, SCIRI's Adil Abdel Mahdi is the strongest candidate.
He would be likely to yield to Kurdish demands on Kirkuk, as well as work towards the creation of a Shia super-region comprising nine provinces in the south.
Mr Abdel Mahdi would be unlikely to purge militiamen from the security services or disband the militias, two key demands of the Sunnis and secularists, who have no militias.
Thus, the struggle is, essentially, between Kurdish-Shia federalists and Iraqi nationalist centrists, between those who want Iraq to emerge as a weak state with strong regions, and those who insist that Baghdad should have undisputed control over Arab provinces but are ready to grant the Kurds autonomy in the three Kurdish provinces.