The Iraqi vote for provincial councils this weekend was an important step forward for a country desperately trying to recover a semblance of normality after a calvary of war and tyranny, sanctions and occupation, and a paroxysm of ethnosectarian slaughter that has uprooted nearly a fifth of the population.

It would be nice to believe that Iraq is climbing out of the abyss into a new era where politics and the vote, institutions and the rule of law are displacing the gun. In reality, voting patterns, already marked by sect, tribe and faction, will be heavily influenced by patronage – which in Iraq is mostly wielded by those who have militia might.