31.   In the past, the post has gone to top figures outside the party.

32.   Latin American members argued that the post should go to another Latin since Ayala Lasso never completed his term.

33.   That post went to Bacharrudin Jusuf Habibie, a former research and technology minister and longtime friend of Suharto who has sponsored costly, high-tech projects.

34.   That post eventually went to Georgi Parvanov.

35.   That post went to Georgi Parvanov.

36.   That post went to German lawyer Thomas Bach.

37.   The interior minister post went to an ethnic Pashtun, Taj Mohammed Wardak, who returned to Afghanistan last year after living in California.

38.   The key posts went to the northern alliance, however, specifically to the Jamiat-e-Islami party of the former president, Burhanuddin Rabbani.

39.   The post went Friday to a political independent, Carlo Ezeglio Ciampi.

40.   The post went instead to Habibie, a former research and technology minister and longtime friend of Suharto whose costly, high-tech projects have unsettled the markets.