KABUL, Afghanistan, Jan. 3 — Burhanuddin Rabbani, Afghanistan's former president, did not lose an election. His military allies won the war.

Yet when all of Afghanistan's factions convened in Bonn in November in a United Nations-brokered effort to map out a transition to a new Afghan government, Mr. Rabbani — who took power in 1992, was deposed four years later and then spent five years in internal exile — was asked to step aside. Twelve days ago he did so, hugging his successor, Hamid Karzai, the chairman of the interim government, as the world watched.

It was a relatively orderly transfer of power, but also an awkward one. Mr. Rabbani had no formal post to retreat to and no portfolio to preside over. It seemed unclear exactly what he would do.

All is now clear: he will continue to act much like Afghanistan's president.

He has a security entourage larger than former President Bill Clinton's. He lives in the presidential compound, in a large quasi- modernist house called Castle No. 1. His guards control the compound, and have sometimes seemed uninterested in ensuring that visitors also see Mr. Karzai.

And all day long, a stone's throw from the seat of the interim government, Mr. Rabbani receives visitors from all over the country coming to pay their respects, or seek advice or ask him to press their case with officials he appointed. With the transfer of power, Mr. Rabbani said in an interview at Castle No. 1 last night, he thought he would have fewer commitments than before. Instead he finds that he is busier than ever.

He has met with the United Nations special representative, the deputy foreign minister of Iran, and the British general leading the peacekeeping force. Mr. Rabbani, a religious conservative long skeptical of foreign intervention, made clear again today that he wants the force to stay no more than six months.

Some of his commitments include meeting with Mr. Karzai and offering his successor advice. Mr. Rabbani said he fully supported the new government, and was "personally cooperating," even if he has no official role. Still, skeptics are keeping a wary eye on him and a close ally, the Pashtun commander Abdul Rab Rassoul Sayyaf, whose failure to attend the inauguration of the interim government on Dec. 22 raised concern here. The sight of Mr. Rabbani holding court as if nothing has changed does not help.

What can seem at times a dual presidency represents the complex power dynamics here. Mr. Rabbani came of age with Ahmed Shah Massoud, the revered Northern Alliance military leader who was assassinated last September.

Mr. Rabbani is an ethnic Tajik, as was Mr. Massoud, and as is much of the Northern Alliance military structure they came to lead. Mr. Rabbani remains head of the political party of the Northern Alliance or, as he prefers it, the United Front.

In some ways, Mr. Karzai, a Pashtun from Kandahar, is an outsider in his own government, which is controlled by ethnic Tajik officials. Mr. Rabbani became Afghanistan's first Tajik leader in 250 years when he assumed the presidency in 1992.

He actively held the office for four years, most of them marked by fierce factional fighting that reduced much of Kabul to rubble. He then spent five years in internal exile in Faizabad after the Taliban came to power.

"I am not satisfied with my achievements," he said today of his term as president. "I could not carry out some of the things I had in mind because of the war and fighting imposed by foreign countries."

Ordinary Afghans have little praise for his tenure, which they saw as ineffective and corrupt, but his core supporters are very hard core. On the day his successor was sworn in, they passed out souvenir posters bearing Mr. Rabbani's picture.

All over Kabul, banners have been hung praising him and thanking him for his service.

A typical one reads: "Rabbani, you are the savior of our dignity, national sovereignty and territorial integrity."

It certainly looks like the seeds of a political campaign, but Mr. Rabbani was vague today about his plans. He said his efforts were not aimed at restoring himself to the presidency, but at preserving national unity and security.

He does, however, hope to build the United Front into a political movement for all of Afghanistan's people.

"I intend to serve our good people as long as I am alive," he said.