A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Monday, October 4, 2010

Iraq Breaks World Record for Longest Time to Form a Government

Iraq has apparently broken the world record for longest time taken to form a government after an election, surpassing the 208 days the Dutch ran up in 1977. And the Dutch presumably did not have bombs going off throughout the process.

I haven't commented much of late about the Maliki/‘Allawi standoff; mostly I think because not much new has happened. But at least they'll make it into the Guinness Book.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There seems to be a lot of pressure to form yet another Government of National Unity, which is clearly a very difficult thing to manage. Would a (barely) minority government, coupled with a real opposition, really be that bad? Worse than waiting months for a government to be formed? It seems to have worked in Britain and Canada -- admittedly countries with a tradition of democracy and respect for the rule of law -- why not Iraq? Do people somehow think that the Iraqis can keep this up forever?