Finally! More than eight months after parliamentary elections were held in Iraq, newly elected President Jalal Talabani has officially nominated Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to serve a second term, charging him with pulling together a ruling coalition over the next 30 days. Talabani, in a televised press conference, asked al-Maliki to create “a government of national partnership [that] will not exclude anyone.” While Iraq struggled to put together a legislature based on competing political factions, fundamental services for citizens have slipped through the cracks, making the formation of a functional government a pressing issue.
Read it at The New York Times
