Nuri al-Maliki (L) has 10 days to present a cabinet

 The withdrawal of the Fadhila party on Friday, part of the Alliance bloc, may help to end a struggle over the important post of oil minister.

A spokesman told Aljazeera that the party was withdrawing because it felt the selection of ministers was being dictated by personal interests, not national unity.

"We will not return to the negotiating table, and we have announced our final position. We withdraw from the formation of the government, and we will stay in parliament to express the voice of the people," Sabah al-Saadi, a party spokesman, said on Friday.

"We have found that the way the negotiations are progressing and the way ministerial posts are being distributed, which is based on personal interest and selfish desires, will not lead to the formation of a truly new Iraq."

The party had been pushing its own candidates against Hussain al-Shahristani, the choice of bigger Alliance groups.

The row over the oil ministry, in control of the world's third biggest reserves of crude and at the heart of efforts to revive Iraq's shattered economy, has been a major reason for a delay in efforts to form a government in recent days.

Al-Saadi also criticised other parties for trying to force candidates for ministries on the Alliance's prime minister-designate, Nuri al-Maliki.

Al-Maliki has another 10 days under a one-month constitutional deadline to present his cabinet to parliament.

US role

Al-Saadi also said much of the current negotiations were being influenced by external pressure from the US ambassador in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad.

Khalilzad has played a major role in mediating in Iraq's political disputes for the past year.

He has said that Washington, frustrated by the delay in forming a government after December's election, wants competent ministers appointed to run Iraq for the next four years as it tries to reduce the US presence.

Hashem al-Hashemi is Fadhila's candidate for oil minister

There is also a lack of agreement on filling the sensitive ministries of interior and defence with figures free of ties to militias that have flourished in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.

Leaders from the Sunni minority - and, more discreetly, the US - are demanding the removal of the interior minister, accused of allowing Shia police death squads to operate.

Fadhila is one of more than a dozen parties in the United Alliance that has a near majority in parliament and has a representative on the bloc's seven-strong steering committee.

It had been pressing to have a Fadhila member named oil minister. Among its candidates was the present minister Hashem al-Hashemi.

Rival candidates

Other Alliance negotiators have been pressing the case for al-Shahristani, an independent member of the Alliance. He appears to be in a strong position to secure the post, over oil ministry technocrat Thamir Ghadhban.

Al-Shahristani is a nuclear scientist by training. Tortured and imprisoned by Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi president, for - he says - refusing to work on a nuclear arms programme, he was once seen as a potential prime minister and became a deputy speaker of parliament.

He has been criticised by Sunni Arabs for being too rigid in his attachment to Shia sectarian interests. He is seen as close to top Shia cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and played a role in forming the Alliance, with al-Sistani's blessing, as means of avoiding a split in the Shia vote.

Oil industry officials have voiced some reservations about al-Shahristani's ability to lead the ministry, which provides almost all Iraq's state revenue and is vital to the rebuilding of the devastated economy.

Several officials said they were concerned that al-Shahristani, despite his technical background, has little experience of the  oil sector and a reputation as being unreceptive to advice.

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