UNITY:

Allawi bloc to join Iraq's new government (Daily Star, April 11, 2005)

Iraq's outgoing prime minister has agreed that his parliamentary bloc will join the country's new government, and he is in negotiations on what Cabinet posts it will receive, spokesman said on Sunday. "Iyad Allawi decided that his bloc will take part in the new government because he believes in making the political and democratic process in Iraqi successful," spokesman Thaer al-Naqib told Reuters.

Allawi's supporters had previously said they would not join the government, preferring to act as opposition in Parliament.

Allawi's bloc has 40 seats in the 275-member Parliament, behind the Shiite Islamist-led alliance that secured a slim parliamentary majority and a Kurdish coalition that won 75 seats.

Including the bloc in the new Cabinet will mean Iraq's government has more claim to being a national unity administration, with no major parliamentary groups not represented in the Cabinet.