**Afghan President Hamid Karzai has suspended parliament’s winter recess until a new cabinet has been approved.**Most of Mr Karzai’s cabinet nominees were rejected at the weekend, so he must offer a new selection before his government can begin fully operating.
Parliament’s six-week break was due to begin on Tuesday. Mr Karzai is expected to propose a new cabinet within days.
Meanwhile, the UN said Western funding for parliamentary elections in May 2010 will depend on reform of voting bodies.
The Afghan government will struggle to find funds to finance the elections without support from other nations.
New list in days
In a secret vote among 200 MPs on Saturday, only seven of Mr Karzai’s 24 cabinet nominees were accepted by parliamentarians.
He issued a decree on Monday, ordering recess to be suspended until voting on new nominees was complete.
“The list of new nominees for the cabinet is due to be sent to the parliament for approval in a few days,” a government statement said.
The rejections effectively leave Afghanistan still without a fully functioning government, just weeks before Mr Karzai is due to attend a donor conference in London on 28 January.
President Karzai was returned for a second five-year term after last August’s election, despite investigators discovering more than a quarter of votes were fraudulent.
The United Nations has said international funding for this year’s parliamentary elections will depend on reform of the country’s election institutions.
Million-dollar shortfall
A UN spokesman in Kabul said officials involved in fraud during last year’s presidential poll should also be replaced.
According to Afghanistan’s independent electoral commission, next May’s parliamentary elections are going to cost around $120 million (£75m) - funds they admit they will struggle to find.
Chief electoral officer Daoud Ali Najafi said he was confident that the West would come up with the $50m shortfall in their budget.
But privately diplomats say few of the governments who supported last year’s deeply flawed presidential poll have the stomach for more of the same, says the BBC’s Peter Greste in Kabul.
Ideally they would prefer them to be delayed, but the Afghan government believes it has to press ahead with the elections in line with the constitution.
UN spokesman Aleem Siddique said it would offer a graded response depending on the level of commitment the government shows to reforming the system and sacking corrupt officials.
Election experts say a complete reform is simply too big to achieve in the time available.
It was not clear how the government and donors would bridge that gap.