BAGHDAD (Reuters) — In the past three years, Iraqis have experienced war, anarchy, US occupation and two interim governments. On Thursday, however, they will finally elect their first four-year parliament since Saddam Hussein’s fall.But will any new government be more capable than its predecessors of ending a two-year-old insurgency while negotiating Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian minefields?

With three days to go, and no reliable opinion polls, many expect the United Iraqi Alliance, a grouping of Islamist parties from the Shi’ite Muslim majority, to dominate again, emerging with perhaps around 40 percent of the seats in parliament.

At the last election in January, the alliance won 48 percent of the vote, but since then some parties have left its fold, and Sunni Arabs, who largely boycotted January’s poll, will vote in far higher numbers this time, denting the Shi’ite share.

The Kurds, who make up about 20 percent of Iraq’s 27 million people, are also expected to do well, securing up to 25 percent of the vote, thanks to rules that may work in their favour.

And in third place, perhaps even challenging for second, former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who heads a secular list that draws members from across Iraq’s sectarian divide, is expected to build on his solid 14 percent showing in January.

The result will be a broad-based coalition government, some political analysts predict, though it may take weeks to emerge.

“We’re looking at a much more pluralistic coalition than we saw last time around,” said Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at Queen Mary College, University of London, referring to January.

“We’ll see a diluting of the United Iraqi Alliance, with Allawi taking a larger share, and a less rigid position when it comes to negotiating with the insurgency,” he told Reuters.

A poll for the BBC released on Monday showed turnout could be as high as 80 percent, a factor Dodge said could further dent the United Iraqi Alliance’s showing.

Several Sunni Arab lists are contesting the election and their religious leaders have urged members of the minority to vote. If they respond, the polls become less predictable.

If a broad-based coalition does emerge, compromise will be the watchword. Since a two-thirds majority in parliament is needed to form a government, all will need to strike deals.

Over the past year, the United Iraqi Alliance dominated the government, with the Kurds as junior partners, and allowed scant room for opposition, let alone compromise.

In negotiations over a constitution, the major development of the last eight months, the Shi’ites and Kurds held a strict line, dismissing Sunni Arab objections to several key clauses. They have promised to renegotiate some elements next year.

The earlier hardline approach aggravated tensions with the Sunnis, who form the backbone of the insurgency, exacerbating a low-level sectarian war that has rumbled for the past year.

All politicians appear determined to put a lid on those tensions, fearing they could lead to civil war.

“If you look at the future of Iraq, to be a country without a government or a country with the existing government, I think you have to compromise,” said Saleh al-Mutlak, a Sunni Arab nationalist expected to pick up a fair share of the Sunni vote.

“If they win this time,” he said, referring to the United Iraqi Alliance, “then they will lead the country to civil war.” To avoid that, he said, compromise was essential.

However, the search for compromise will not be easy. Whether Allawi will be willing to forge a coalition with the United Iraqi Alliance, one of whose parties, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, has made its dislike of the former prime minister clear, is a major question mark. But if the Alliance is serious about calming Iraq’s sectarian divisions, and reaching out, however tentatively, to insurgent groups, it needs to bring Allawi onside.

“There are already some broad discussions among some blocs about what the new government will look like after the election,” a Western diplomat said last week. “There will be a lot of deals offered and a lot of horse-trading.”

A senior candidate on Allawi’s list said on Sunday that Allawi was prepared to give ground.

“Ultimately we have to compromise, otherwise there will be no formation of a government,” Murfid al-Jazaeri, a former minister of culture, told reporters in Hilla.

“Sectarianism on one side will feed sectarianism on the other, extremism breeds extremism, and that’s a disaster.”

Even if a spirit of compromise does emerge, major obstacles loom, including whether to negotiate with insurgents, change the constitution or seek the withdrawal of foreign forces.

The challenge is to handle those issues within parliament and keep a government together. The price of failure could be a further slide towards civil war.