With no party gaining a majority,

[Ironpost]

backdoor deal-making will shape the new government, I'm talking about Iraq. This is in todays Tulsa World on the front page. I thought we were bringing democracy, not more instability. what the f is going on.

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Democracy can be unstable

and many democracies regularly have to have deals to form coalitions.

The consensus of the new stories appears to be that, although the United Iraqi Alliance got 48% opf the vote, the method of distributing seats means they'll get 140 or 141 out of 275 seats - ie just over half. This will mean they could make some decisions on their own. The choice of president and prime minister, however, must be passed by two thrids - so they need to ally with either the main Kurd party, or nearly all of the rest of them.

On the BBC tonight, one of the high-up people in the UIA said that they were going to hold a vote among the UIA assembly members to decide who they want for Prime Minister.

Unfortunately, I think that puts them in a very bribable situation. I desperately hope the vote will be secret.