Iraqi lawmakers on Thursday approved a list of 36-member new cabinet with two deputy premierships unnamed and five ministerial posts only filled temporarily.

The incomplete lineup was approved by 180 votes in favor, out of a total of 185 votes cast in the 275-member parliament.

Lawmakers warmly applauded the result announced by Hachim al-Hassani, speaker of the National Assembly, in the US-protected Green Zone in central Baghdad.

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite Muslim, was named acting defense minister, but expected to hand over the portfolio to a Sunni Arab.

Jaafari's Shiite alliance with 140 parliament seats rejected all candidates proposed by the Sunni groups, branding them as former Baathists.

The cabinet has four deputy prime ministers, including Ahmed Chalabi, a former Pentagon favorite, and Rowsch Nouri Shaways,former Vice President. The remaining two are yet to be named.Chalabi, a member of the Shiite dominated alliance, was also named as acting oil minister.

Shaways, a Kurd, was also named as acting electricity minister.

"It might not be the perfect cabinet, but all the posts were appointed based on the best options to serve Iraqi people and to  push the political process forward," Jaafari said after the new cabinet list he proposed Wednesday was approved.

"It is the first step in rebuilding a new Iraq," he stressed.

Despite the overwhelming approval, critics saw the cabinet as incompetent. Meshaan al-Jubury, a Sunni parliament member, described the new government as one of "sectarian" which failed to represent the Sunni Arabs.

"We were cheated," the outspoken MP told reporters, referring to an allegedly broken promise to include both the Sunnis and supporters of the outgoing Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a US-favored secular Shiite.

Allawi's party won 40 seats in the assembly but turned out to be excluded from the Jaafari administration.

Hassani said the horse-trading talks among the concerned parties will come to an end within days to fill the seven unnamed governmental posts.

The apparently hasty vote for the cabinet came as Washington called for an early end to the stalemate over forming the government three months after the parliamentary elections.

The government formation also coincided with the 68th birthday of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, who has been held in US custody since he was captured in December 2003.

Jaafari said the new cabinet's priority was to fight the corruption which "has reached a high level under the former regime."

(Xinhua News Agency April 29, 2005)