New cabinet for Guinea-Bissau

Guinea-Bissau's President Jose Mario Vaz. Picture: Sia Kambou

Guinea-Bissau's President Jose Mario Vaz. Picture: Sia Kambou

Published Oct 13, 2015

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Bissau - Guinea-Bissau's president has named a new cabinet to try to end a two-month crisis that brought fears of renewed instability in the coup-prone West African country.

The decree issued late on Monday came hours after talks collapsed between President Jose Mario Vaz and prime minister Carlos Correia, the country's third prime minister since August.

The decree said “the lack of government is inflicting harm to the state”.

The country became a major transit point for cocaine after its last coup in 2012 and some analysts are concerned the months without governmental authority could make it easier for traffickers.

Guinea-Bissau has been without regular government since Vaz dismissed his rival Prime Minister Domingos Simoes Pereira on August 12.

The two men engaged in a long-running struggle for power exacerbated by the fact that they held overlapping duties under the country's political system.

A second government was dissolved after the supreme court said in September it was unconstitutional for the president to name a cabinet by decree - raising the possibility that the new government could suffer the same fate.

The new cabinet includes some former ministers but excludes Pereira, who was in Correia's previously submitted lists, and former Foreign Affairs Minister Mario Lopes da Rosa.

Guinea-Bissau has not seen a democratically elected leader serve a full term since independence in 1974.

Vaz has pledged to reform the military, a participant in nine coups or attempted coups since 1980.

Reuters

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