KABUL ; Afghan President Hamid Karzai ordered parliament today to postpone its winter recess so lawmakers can consider his new choices for cabinet posts, his office said.

Afghanistan's parliament rejected more than two-thirds of Karzai's proposals for 24 cabinet posts on Saturday, delivering a major blow to his authority.

Karzai issued a decree, as head of state, that the legislature should delay its 45-day recess until he has proposed new ministers in place of those who were rejected in a secret ballot, the statement said. Parliament had been due to go on recess on Tuesday. Of the 24 people Karzai put forward for the cabinet, only seven won approval on Saturday in a secret ballot of more than 200 lawmakers.

The rejections effectively leave Afghanistan without a fully functioning government, dragging out a political vacuum that has prevailed since an August presidential election.

Ahead of an international conference scheduled to take place in London on January 28 to deliberate the war-torn country's future, Kabul's ministries are being run by junior bureaucrats who have little power and no coherent plan.

The decree was issued "under Article 107 of the Afghan constitution in a bid to complete, as soon as possible, the cabinet and prevent obstruction of government work," Karzai's statement said.

"The list of new nominees for the cabinet is due to be sent to the parliament for approval." Western diplomats, including the UN's special representative Kai Eide, have said that the parliamentary rejection of Karzai's cabinet choices is an obstacle on Afghanistan's road to democratic governance. But they concede it has shown parliament to be a functioning institution that refused to be cowed by vested interests.