KABUL, Afghanistan — In a clear signal to President Hamid Karzai that he cannot count on Parliament for support, lawmakers resoundingly rejected most of his nominees for cabinet posts and expressed discontent with the candidates' competence.
Zapatero moved swiftly to quell the discontent with a cabinet reshuffle last week, bringing in several leftwing figures to bolster traditional support.
Mr. Maliki has tried to respond to public discontent by giving his cabinet 100 days to come up with ways to improve services.
The two senior Labour figures spoke out after shadow cabinet sources confirmed that messages of discontent had been conveyed to the leadership team by the parliamentary Labour party chairman, Dave Watts.
More wounding, Lord Rodgers, a Labour cabinet minister in the 1978-79 winter of discontent and later Lib Dem leader in the Lords, complained that Sir Menzies lacked the necessary drive and energy to push his party towards greater success.
Parliament rejected more than two-thirds of Mr. Karzai's 24 cabinet nominees on Saturday, signaling, among other things, discontent with his choices and frustration that a broader spectrum of lawmakers was not consulted about whom he put forward.
Lady Rosebery, "conscious of her husband's supreme ability," wanted him in the cabinet and was furiously agitating her husband's discontent until Rosebery threatened to resign his Home Office position.
Political analysts said that Mr. Turk's margin of victory confirmed the growing discontent with Prime Minister Janez Jansa's conservative cabinet and would help strengthen the opposition Social Democrats before a parliamentary election expected in the fall of next year.
It's that moment in a bad political play when a cabinet minister says, 'But Mrs Thatcher, what about the rising discontent in northern towns over the poll tax?' And you think: but he knows she knows that".
Labour's long stint in government has involved a painful attrition of its best-known talent; many current cabinet ministers have minuscule name recognition and no independent political identity so public discontent is directed overwhelmingly at Mr Brown.
