However, in elections like these, it is the procedure, the time-frame and the participation, more than the outcome that count. But, seeing the Sunnis who held the reins of power so far, un-represented, brings forth the question of any enduring efficacy of the election or the fulfillment of the aim that the election was designed to accomplish. National reconciliation very much remains the issue.

Even though, the majority community Shias have been catapulted into power after a long period of denial and the Kurds in the north have a sense of vindication of their own, so long as the actual levers of control are not relinquished by the US-led allied forces, the Iraqi exercise of power remains elusive.

Inasmuch as one sees in the election and in the high turn-out, albeit in selective areas, a clear indication of the Iraqis' desire to take the future reins of their country in their own hands, one also cannot fail to see the clear indication of the ballot, that they would like to see an end to occupation.

But much remains to be accomplished. Given that the polls will elect a constituent assembly, whose task it would be to draw up a constitution, to be approved by a plebiscite, a constitution framed without the inputs from the Sunnis and their participation in its framing, would only deprive it of the legitimacy that it needs to be vested with to be acceptable to all the parties concerned.

This is where the UN has to come in a more tangible and robust way to ensure that Iraq, given the make-up of its society, its multi-cultural and multi-ethnic character with fissiparous tendencies, does not disintegrate. Something that is not beyond the realm of possibility, if all the views and aspirations of all ethnic components and other minorities are not adequately represented in the future democratic dispensation in Iraq.