Prime minister-designate Nuri Al Maliki announced that he would present a government on Saturday, but a flurry of last minute negotiating sparked fears of a further delay some five months after landmark parliamentary elections.
Hassan Al Sunaid, a parliamentarian from Maliki's Dawa Party maintained that the cabinet was ready, but top Kurdish lawmaker Nermeen Othman said that there was no chance that the lineup would be announced on Saturday.
"The prime minister and all his ministers will be on stage and the prime minister will name each new minister, then he will read his program," said Sunaid, adding that deputies would then vote to approve each minister.
Following the approval, the cabinet will be sworn in and Maliki will deliver his inaugural speech.
In the last 24 hours, however, political parties, especially the Sunni Iraqi Concord Front and the secular Iraqi National List of former premier Ayad Allawi, have raised objections to their allotted ministries.
While the dominant conservative Shia United Iraqi Alliance will take at least 15 ministries, the Concord and List look likely to garner around four each.
Sunaid acknowledged that Maliki had received letters from each party, both asking for economic ministries and the Sunnis raising objections over the allocation of the all important security ministries.
"The prime minister is studying these messages and he will answer in the next few hours," said Sunaid.
Most Sunni leaders were closeted in conferences on Friday, which is normally a day of rest and prayer for Muslims.
"Tomorrow there will only be the election of Maliki," said Nermeen Othman, outgoing minister of environment from the Kurdish Alliance, who said that less than a third of the cabinet has been appointed.
"The government will not be presented tomorrow."
Already Maliki has raised the possibility of presenting a cabinet without the positions of the key defense and interior ministries so that the process can move forward without further delays.
Amid Iraq's raging insurgency and sectarian violence, the portfolios dealing with security are of critical importance.
In the five months since elections, daily insurgent violence has been supplemented by increased tensions between Iraq's different communities.
In Baghdad especially, one of the most diverse cities in the country, there have been numerous tit-for-tat killings between the communities that have resulted in the discovery of bodies around the city every morning.
Two bodies were found in different spots around Baghdad, shot dead and showing signs of having been tortured.
There have also been accusations that the Shia dominated interior ministry might not only be turning a blind eye to the death squads, but actively participating.
President Jalal Talabani, for his part, reported that almost 1,100 people were killed around the country in the month of April alone.
The Sunni-dominated insurgency, meanwhile, continued unabated with major clashes between insurgents and US forces reported in both Fallujah and Ramadi, the two main cities of Iraq's western Anbar province.
In the northern oil city of Kirkuk, a Shia petroleum engineer working for the Northern Oil Company was gunned down in front of his house on Friday. Four gunmen approached him, demanded his ID, and then shot him dead, reported police.
In Jadida, a suburb of the capital, five family members of a police lieutenant colonel were injured when a bomb was set off in from of their home.
Ten people, including two soldiers and a policeman, were also wounded when gunmen strafed the mini bus that they were riding in as it passed through the town of Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad.
© 2006 Agence France-Presse
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