A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

I won't count chickens--before or after they are hatched--but this seems like very good news:

Jawad al-Maliki, an experienced political operator and advocate for Iraq's Shiite Muslims, won the approval of Shiite party leaders for the post of prime minister on Friday, a day after the parties' original nominee bowed out under political pressure.

The move could end the political paralysis that has gripped Iraq since national elections were held on Dec. 15. Maliki, a senior member of the coalition of Shiite parties that holds the largest number of seats in Iraq's parliament, is now on course to lead Iraq's first long-term government since the fall of Saddam Hussein. If ultimately chosen, the former exile would inherit grave challenges, among them an economy in tatters, an insurgent movement that continues to attack Iraq's government and its U.S. backers, and ethnic and sectarian tensions that threaten to tear the country apart.

Leaders of the Shiite coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, said Friday night that Maliki's nomination by the alliance's political committee would face a vote by the full membership on Saturday morning. If approved, his name would be formally presented to Iraq's parliament, along with a list of nominees for other top posts, that afternoon.

But events rarely proceed so smoothly in the Iraqi political process, which has been held up for months by the debate over who would be prime minister. The incumbent, Ibrahim al-Jafari, won the alliance's nomination in February, only to be opposed by Sunni Arab and Kurdish political parties. Jafari, who like Maliki is a leader of the Dawa party, gave in to weeks of heavy pressure and surrendered his nomination on Thursday.

On Friday night, leaders of the Shiite alliance said they had gained support for Maliki from the leaders of the Sunni Arab and Kurdish political blocs. The Associated Press quoted Adnan al-Dulaimi, head of the main Sunni Arab coalition in parliament, as saying: "If anyone is nominated except al-Jafari, we won't put any obstacles in his way. He will receive our support."

The Shiite leaders also said they had reached an understanding with other factions over who would hold other top posts in the next government, including those of the president and two deputy presidents, who hold the formal power to nominate a prime minister. An aide to Jafari, Adnan Ali al-Kadhimi, said the Shiites had agreed to yield the presidential post to the incumbent, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd. His two deputies, they said, would be Tariq al-Hashimi, a leader of the Sunni Arab coalition, and Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite economist who had been a rival to Jafari.

Maliki appears to hold a stronger mandate within the Shiite alliance than did Jafari, who was chosen over Abdul Mahdi in February by a single vote. Maliki's only remaining opponent among the Shiite parties is Nadim al-Jabiri, a candidate of the Fadhila Party, whose representative abstained from the political committee's vote on Maliki.

To paraphrase another great leader, this is not the end of the process in selecting a new Iraqi prime minister. It is not even the beginning of the end. But let us hope that it is the end of the beginning.