Instead, Iraq's 325 lawmakers were expected only to discuss internal parliamentary bylaws and forming legislative committees during the session that began in the early afternoon.
It is only the fourth meeting of Parliament since lawmakers were elected in March.
Government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh said it likely will be several more days before President Jalal Talabani formally asks Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki to begin forming the new government and picking Cabinet ministers.
A power-sharing agreement designed by Iraq's Kurdish leaders has assured that Al-Maliki, a Shiite, will remain prime minister even though his State of Law political bloc did not win the most votes in the March 7 parliamentary vote.
A Sunni-backed alliance known as Iraqiya won the most seats in the election, and its leader, former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, worked bitterly against Al-Maliki all summer to prevent him from forming a government.
Allawi was never able to gain enough support to put himself in the prime minister's office, however, and Iraqiya signed off on the power-sharing agreement.
The agreement returns both Al-Maliki and Talabani to power and gives Iraqiya the Parliament speaker's post, which went to Sunni lawmaker Osama Al-Nujaifi.
Allawi was meant to head a council that is intended to serve as a counterweight to Al-Maliki, but he has said that he will not take a post in the new government, calling into question role of the council.
Al-Dabbagh said Iraqiya has a "very important" role in the new government but did not know what Allawi intended to do. "There are no positive signals from him," Al-Dabbagh said.
After Talabani officially asks Al-Maliki to form the government, the prime minister has 30 days to assemble his Cabinet - a painstaking process in Iraq's complicated political map.
Lawmaker Bassem Sharif, a member of the Shiite Fadhila party that is allied with Al-Maliki, said the blocs were still trying to decide how many minister's jobs are available - and how to divvy them up among competing factions. The so-called sovereignty posts such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Ministry of Oil are considered the most prestigious and powerful.
Iraqi politicians began horse-trading Sunday over the formation of a Cabinet, but hopes for a quick resolution were dampened on news Nuri Al-Maliki would not be named premier-designate for several days.
Kamal Al-Saidi, an MP from Al-Maliki's State of Law coalition, said the National Alliance, the pan-Shiite grouping of which State of Law is the largest component, had formed a committee to consider which Cabinet posts it wanted, and to hold talks with other parties.
In a sign that security in the country remains precarious, two people were killed, including a seven-year-old boy, in separate bomb attacks in the restive central province of Diyala, the province's security operations command said.
Also, a US soldier died from wounds sustained from enemy small arms fire during operations in northern Iraq, the US military said. It gave not further details and did not specify where the incident occurred.
