The days ahead will tell us if Iraq’s difficult political process is to chart a new path by allowing the formation of a majority government, as promised by the electoral winners of the October parliamentary election, or continues its 17-year tradition of  “national unity” governments that have proven ineffective, unmanageable and unpopular with the people.

The Sadrists, with 73 seats, scored a major victory in the Iraqi parliament’s opening session on Jan. 9. Their quiet, behind-the-scenes work to form an ethno-sectarian alliance with Kurdish and Sunni parties bore fruit when the alliance easily elected its Sunni choice for the speakership of the parliament, Mohammed al-Halbusi.  

A potentially second major victory was scored during the same session by registering the Sadrists as the biggest bloc with 90 seats after they drew to their bloc an additional 17 members of parliament. This effectively means that once the president of the republic is elected, most likely during parliament’s second session on Feb. 7, he will have 15 days to charge Sadrists with the task of forming the new government, giving them 30 days to achieve this task.

But because of its highly fractious politics, all is not certain in Iraq.