WITH nearly all the votes counted, Iraq’s election has been a success, as far as it goes. Most observers reckon that Iraqis freely expressed their preferences, and more accurately than they did in 2005. This time they voted for candidates as well as faceless party lists. The large Sunni Arab minority, which ran the show under Saddam Hussein, turned out in big numbers, whereas last time most of its people sourly abstained. This does not vindicate the American invasion, which unleashed chaos and strife. But it does give Iraq a chance to entrench one of the few genuine Arab democracies—as long as its competing leaders put country before personal pride.

That looks far from certain. The two main contenders to become the next prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, the incumbent, and Iyad Allawi, one of his post-Saddam predecessors, are neck-and-neck as the final votes are tallied. As the count has favoured first one and then the other, each man has been crying foul whenever he has lagged behind. The electoral commission has rightly rejected calls for a total recount but should allow limited ones in particular localities if there is plain evidence of wrongdoing. It is vital that whichever candidate is adjudged the loser should accept defeat with good grace.

And they should get a move on. Last time it took six months to form a government, as the country spun into the bloodiest phase of a civil war. Mr Maliki will stay in charge as the process gets under way. But democracy delayed is democracy denied, and a dangerous sense of drift may grow. It is vital, too, that whoever cobbles together a coalition ensures that the Sunni Arabs have a strong voice, otherwise alienation and violence could resume. It would be helpful if Mr Allawi, a secular Shia who has the widest cross-sectarian representation that includes substantial Sunni support, were part of a government, whether or not he leads it. Once again Shia slum-dwellers in Baghdad and the south voted in numbers for Muqtada al-Sadr, a populist cleric. Whether or not he joins a ruling coalition (see article), his powerful and often thuggish militia must be disarmed and prevented from creating a state within a state, as Hizbullah has done in Lebanon.

Outsiders must stop stirring the pot

Neighbouring governments this time must also do more to dampen sectarian and ethnic tensions. They are bound to promote the cause of Iraqis likely to be most friendly towards them, but they should resist backing candidates who stir sectarian rivalries as a means to power. Saudi Arabia has yet to open an embassy in Baghdad, which has been taken to mean that it deems Iraq’s new Shia-led order to be illegitimate. Instead the Saudis should press Iraq’s Sunnis to play a full part in rebuilding the state. Syria, if it wants to re-engage with the West, could do more to stop jihadists seeping across the border. Turkey has sensibly begun to accept the autonomy of Iraq’s Kurds, who are likely to be influential in coalition-building. It is also time for Iraq and Kuwait to sort out their differences over borders and debts. And it is to be hoped that Iran too will work with a government in Baghdad that will not bow to its co-religionists in Tehran or seek to impose a Shia theocracy. Before succumbing to the temptation to meddle, countries should reflect that it is better to have a shared interest in a successful country than to dominate a failed one.

Most of all, a new Iraqi government, balanced in sect and ethnicity, should be able to dispense with the services of its American mentor and military minder, though an emergency residual force may well stay behind for a while yet—with the say-so of a sovereign Iraq. A stable Iraq would be good for the entire region. It has at least a chance of emerging.