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Iraq: No govt. nearly half year after election
A five-month deadlock over forming a new government in Iraq risks undermining people's faith in their fledgling democracy, a senior member of an influential Iraqi political party has admitted.
Mohammad al Gharawi, the Syria office director of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), said ordinary Iraqis were reaching a point where they would no longer trust elected politicians.
"There is enormous frustration among the people because of these delays and we have not yet seen the full consequences of that, maybe it will have a large impact at the next elections," he said in an interview.
"The Iraqi people are now saying, 'we did our part, we defied the terrorists to cast our votes and now we see that we voted for politicians who are just looking out for their own interests, not ours'."
Since the March 7 elections, against a backdrop of rising violence, there have been intensive, but as yet inconclusive, negotiations among Iraq's various political blocs and factions to form a new government.
If no government has been cobbled together by September 8–and few expect it will "it will have been more than half a year since Iraqis voted.