Afghanistan's president-elect, Ashraf Ghani, is due to be sworn in today after he formed a unity government with his former rival Abdullah Abdullah (Reuters)
Afghanistan will inaugurate Ashraf Ghani as the new president and Abdullah Abdullah as the country's first "chief executive" on Monday, in a deal drawn up after both men claimed to have won a fraud-tainted election.
The country desperately needs stability as US-led NATO troops withdraw and Taliban insurgents launch fresh offensives, but many questions have arisen over how the power-sharing agreement will work.
-- Who's the boss?The president will have clear seniority in the "national unity government" according to the deal signed by Ghani and Abdullah one week ago.
The document says that the government will be "a genuine political partnership between the president and the CEO (chief executive officer) under the authority of the president."
But the deal also says that Abdullah, as CEO, will fulfil "the functions of an executive prime minister", including chairing weekly meetings of the council of ministers.
The CEO role may evolve into the formal title of prime minister in two years' time when a loya jirga ("grand assembly") discusses constitutional change.
A major cause of contention between the two camps was over the power to appoint officials.
The agreement says that the president and CEO will have "parity" awarding key senior security and economic jobs, with other officials nominated through a new "merit-based mechanism".
"Creation of the CEO post involves a substantial delegation of presidential authority," concluded the independent Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU).
-- Why was it necessary?
Abdullah cried foul immediately after the June 14 election, claiming "industrial-scale" ballot-box stuffing had denied him victory.
Supporters from both sides grew increasingly angry, and the United Nations warned that Afghanistan could return to civil war.
As recently as September 18, UN mission chief Jan Kubis said that if no power-sharing deal was reached, he feared "further uncertainty, even the risk of conflict."
"In Afghanistan there are stark memories of the consequences of a failure in governance arrangements given the tragic descent into civil war in the 1990s," he added.
Some of Abdullah's aggrieved supporters earlier urged their leader to form a "parallel government", while officials were forced to deny reports that current ministers planned to set up an "interim administration" to take power.
-- What was the international role in the deal?
Outgoing President Hamid Karzai often accused the United States of trying to oust him in the 2009 election, when he retained power.
So this time the US and other countries were determined to stay out of the process -- until
disputes over fraud allegations threatened to spiral into nationwide instability.
US Secretary of State John Kerry flew into Kabul twice to bring the sides together and broker the power-sharing deal that was agreed more than three months after polling day.
Kerry spoke to both candidates dozens of times by telephone, with President Barack Obama also calling them to keep negotiations alive.
"We helped the candidates address both the electoral fraud and the potentially dangerous political divide that the candidates were facing, but Afghans and Afghans alone made the tough decisions," Kerry said afterwards.
The United Nations organised an audit of all eight million ballot papers with observers drafted in from around the world, including 410 from the European Union, to check every vote.
All 23,000 ballot boxes were flown to Kabul for the audit, with US, British, German, Italian and other national forces involved as part of the NATO military coalition.
-- Will the deal work?
Abdullah has made strongly conciliatory statements since the deal was signed.
"I want to congratulate Dr. Ashraf Ghani, the future president of Afghanistan, and thank him for his stance," he said.
"The political deal that results in the creation of the national unity government is the best alternative and best choice for the people of Afghanistan."
Ghani has also welcomed the new government that he will lead, and said he will tackle the country's many problems, but he also sounded a note of warning to Abdullah.
"This national unity government is not a sharing of power, but a sharing of duties," he said.