Afghan President Hamid Karzai plans to keep most of his top technocrat ministers favoured by the West in a new cabinet presented to parliament on Saturday.

Western diplomats have generally welcomed the list of 23 cabinet nominees, which keeps the heads of the key interior and finance ministries unchanged along with other technocrats.

But some Afghan lawmakers and citizens who were hoping for a refreshing change in a government dogged by corruption said Karzai's lineup was a list of recycled figures that would lead to a lackluster cabinet unable to take assertive decisions.

Karzai is under intense pressure from Western countries whose funds and troops support his government to show he is serious about clamping down on corruption. They see the cabinet as the first vital test of his commitment to fighting graft.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Anwar Jigdalak presented the list to lawmakers for their approval, one month after Karzai's re-election was confirmed after an August 20 poll marred by rampant fraud.

US officials acknowledge that the 30,000 extra troops Washington is sending to Afghanistan will not be effective against the growing Taliban insurgency if the Afghan government cannot win the loyalty of its own people.

In the first official comment from the West, Canada welcomed Karzai's proposed list, which must be approved by parliament.

"We are pleased to see that the list of candidates includes competent individuals, some of whom we have worked with in the past," said ambassador William Crosbie, whose country has 2,800 troops in Afghanistan, mainly in southern Taliban strongholds.

Karzai did not attend the parliamentary session. Speaker Younus Qanuni said the chamber would meet on Sunday to discuss his nominations.

Few new faces

Wahid Omar, Karzai's spokesman, defended Karzai's nomination of old faces from his previous administration.

"The only standard for those who remain in the cabinet has been their efficiency, effectiveness and proficiency," Omar said.

"Our interpretation of change is that those who are effective, who have had achievements in the past, should be kept," he told a news conference.

Some Western diplomats said before Karzai's list was given to parliament the retention of top ministers showed he had a limited pool of qualified candidates to take on big portfolios. Afghan lawmakers lamented there were not enough new faces.

"My opinion is that there won't be any major change and it won't be a very good start for Afghanistan," said lawmaker Alam Gul Kochai.

Kabul resident Najmuddin Khan agreed: "We don't have new faces in the new cabinet. The old ones will not do anything. In the past eight years, they haven't served the country."

Surprisingly, no nominations for the foreign affairs and urban development portfolios were named.

Officials earlier told Reuters that Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, a technocrat seen by Western leaders as competent, would stay on until a London conference on Afghanistan in January.

They did not give a reason why he would leave after that. Spanta's senior adviser, Davood Moradian, said Spanta remained foreign minister as far as Karzai was concerned.

Only one woman, the minister of women's affairs, was chosen.

Almost half the ministers will be replaced or reshuffled, but for the most part they will not be the cabinet's top figures. The cabinet does not include any figures from the opposition.

All three security offices, including the head of the intelligence agency, are unchanged. Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, who the West has praised, kept his post.

Those portfolios are crucial at a time when new police and army recruits are being trained and deployed, with Afghan leaders hopeful they can take the lead in security in five years.-Reuters