BAGHDAD, Jan 2 (Reuters) - The execution of Saddam Hussein and footage showing Shi'ite officials taunting him on the gallows is a blow to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's calls for national reconciliation, a top Sunni lawmaker said on Tuesday.

Saleem al-Jibouri, from the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni Arab parliamentary bloc, said the government's decision to rush through the execution and the degrading hanging video have hardened perceptions among Sunni Arabs that the Shi'ite majority is running the state under a sectarian banner.

"The timing of the execution and the footage shown hurt the feelings of those who have the desire to join the political process," Jibouri, who is a leading moderate voice speaking for the Accordance bloc, told Reuters in an interview.

"The big question now is how serious is the government in calling for national reconciliation. It now has to prove it."

Maliki, a member of the Shi'ite community oppressed under Saddam but now in the ascendancy, called on Saddam's supporters to make peace and join the political process in a statement issued shortly after Saddam was hanged in Baghdad on Saturday.

There had been hopes that Maliki would host "national reconciliation" talks this month as a follow-up to a unity conference held in Baghdad last month that brought together Shi'ites, Sunni Arabs, ethnic Kurds and former Baathists.

But the hanging video, apparently filmed on a mobile phone and showing people chanting the name of Shi'ite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, has inflamed sectarian passions in a country already on the brink of civil war.

Hundreds of people marched through the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday carrying portraits of Saddam and banners proclaiming him a martyr and a hero. Similar demonstrations have taken place in Sunni Baghdad neighbourhoods and other towns.

RAPID EXECUTION

In hanging Saddam four days after the failure of an appeal despite U.S. concerns over a rapid execution, Maliki has boosted his authority among his fractious Shi'ite allies but infuriated Sunnis already fearful of victorious Shi'ites.

Jibouri said Maliki must confront hard-line elements of his Shi'ite coalition who oppose any rapprochement with ex Baathists and take steps to prove his commitment to reconciliation.

"We were expecting that the execution of Saddam will coincide with other practical steps in which the government shows Iraqis its good intentions in calling for reconciliation."

Jibouri said freeing Sunni Arabs from prisons for alleged ties to the insurgency, many of them held without charges, would be a way of addressing complaints of victimisation of Sunnis.

Senior Iraqi officials have told Reuters U.S.-led forces are likely to launch a limited New Year offensive against Sadr's Mehdi militia, a move which would be warmly welcomed by Sunnis who accuse Sadr's militias of targeting their community.

Jibouri said the government's image in the Muslim world had been battered by executing Saddam on the first day of the Eid al-Adha holiday. While some Shi'ites saw the hanging as an Eid gift from God, some Sunnis saw the timing as offensive.

That view was echoed by a Shi'ite man whose uncle was executed by Saddam's intelligence services in 1984 on suspicion of belonging to Maliki's then-underground Dawa party.

"The government has turned a criminal into a martyr," the 42-year-old engineer said, though he was too afraid to give his name. "When I heard them insulting Saddam, I realised it was not an execution. It was an act of revenge."

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