On the day that Afghanistan's grand legislative council, the Emergency Loya Jirga, was supposed to end, it produced new questions. Marshal Mohammed Fahim, the Northern Alliance commander who has served as Defense Minister since December, indicated that he was prepared to give up his post. His fellow Panjshiri Tajik, Yunus Qanooni, appears headed for the Finance Ministry. And President Hamid Karzai continues to struggle to assemble a cabinet and hold onto popular support.

Karzai relented from his controversial June 17 proposal that he name a cabinet after the Loya Jirga closed, but pleaded for one extra day in session. He promised to present a cabinet on June 19, after the roughly 1,600 delegates at the fractious council had taken a "rest." Karzai's earlier maneuver still drew criticism today. "One of the elements of democracy in the world is having a government which believes in the rules of democracy, including the separation of powers," former President Burhanuddin Rabbani told EurasiaNet. Many delegates were visibly angry at Karzai's June 17 assertion. When some of them left the big tent, the shouting and yelling outside resembled a political demonstration. At times, Loya Jirga commission chairman Ismael Qasimyar lost control of angry delegates who seized the microphone. Karzai had held firm through this impasse, saying that he intended to name his own cabinet. Late today for a few seconds, he took the podium and urged delegates to return for one more day, until 5 p.m. on June 19. Presumably, that is when Karzai intends to announce his cabinet.

Assembling a cabinet will be very difficult for Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun linked to Tajiks like Fahim. Many Pashtuns suspect that Fahim and other former Northern Alliance leaders will not faithfully serve all the country's constituencies. Yet Fahim has strong contacts with American and European leaders, as well as experience. As Karzai tries to assemble a strong central government and reclaim power from provincial warlords, he needs a Defense Minister who can persuade warlords and their minions to serve a central army.

Nonetheless, according to Fahim, someone else will probably emerge as a candidate for Defense Minister on June 19. "I am leaving my job," Fahim told me this afternoon. "We'll have major changes at the cabinet level. From 30 ministries we are heading to 21 mostly specialized and non-controversial ministers. We will also have some reform at the security sections, and Qanooni would be going to the finance ministry." None of these changes are official. Qanooni served as Interior Minister until early June. [For further information, see the EurasiaNet Q&A archive].

Dealmaking happens at dizzying rates in Afghanistan, and misunderstandings at the Loya Jirga have produced inaccurate predictions about when Karzai would be elected and who would chair the commission. Nonetheless, Karzai seems to have developed the outlines of a deal to assemble a cabinet acceptable to the majority of delegates. As a tentative step, Karzai had proposed that each of the country's nine provinces send five members to participate in talks on forming a parliament after the Loya Jirga. For some that step didn't go far enough."People are right," Fahim told EurasiaNet. "They come from very far-off places to talk about problems of peace and stability in their areas. They want to see some concrete decisions made before they go back."

If Fahim does resign his post, Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah would be the only Panjshiri to hold onto his job since a Bonn conference produced an interim government in late December. Though they formed the backbone of anti-Taliban resistance after the death of United Front leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, the Panjshiris have come under increasing pressure to share power since the Taliban fell. If Fahim withdraws and Qanooni shifts from controlling security to controlling finances, Karzai may be able to more convincingly claim that he is spreading power and influence around the country.

Karzai has also promised to keep Islamist extremism from affecting his agenda. In the VIP section of the Loya Jirga tent, tellingly, two figures were visibly absent today. Rabbani and Wahabbi leader Abdul Rasul Sayaff sat all day together in another part of the tent. Rabbani, who proposed extending the Loya Jirga on June 17, again made himself the center of attention. Now he is the unofficial head of what looks like an opposition bloc in formation, which could include up to half of all those present.

After seven days of at-times confusing debate, individual stances are finally crystallizing into tangible political positions. One factor that remains unclear, though, is how former king Mohammed Zahir Shah – whom many Afghans had considered an alternative to Karzai – will influence the new government. "Karzai offered to give me the ministry of Civil Aviation," said Hamid Sadiq, Zahir Shah's spokesman. "But I told Karzai, I am not interested. I prefer to stay at my present position with the king. We will see what