BAGHDAD, (Reuters) – Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a  member of Iraq’s Shi’ite Arab majority, has called for a  reduction in power-sharing pacts that have given minority Sunnis  and Kurds a greater political voice since 2003.

Maliki said continuing indefinitely with the agreements,  which have provided a degree of consensus in a country battling  to contain sectarian violence, would lead to “catastrophe” and  that Iraq needed to embrace majority rule.

His comments were likely to fuel suspicions of Sunni Arabs,  dominant under Saddam Hussein, and Kurds, who have their own  semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq, that minority groups  could be subject to majority Shi’ite tyranny.

“In the beginning, consensus was necessary for us. In this  last period, we all embraced consensus and everyone took part  together. We needed calm between all sides and political  actors,” Maliki said in an interview late on Thursday with  al-Hurra, a U.S.-backed television station.

“But if this continues it will become a problem, a flaw, a  catastrophe. The alternative is democracy, and that means  majority rule … From now on I call for an end to that degree  of consensus,” Maliki said.