Guinea’s Conde pushes ahead with government after disputed election

Guinean President Alpha Conde has pushed ahead with a new government after fiercely disputed elections last October that claimed dozens of lives.

The 82-year-old leader named 16 new ministers, according to a communique read on state TV on Tuesday night, as part of an expected reshuffle.

Conde won a violently contested third term after pushing through a new constitution that, he argued, meant the two-term limit on president tenure had been reset.

He re-appointed most of his previous ministers, according to Tuesday’s decree.

One exception is a new foreign minister — former presidential chief of staff Ibrahim Kalil Kaba, who earned a PhD in mathematics from Louisiana Tech University and later taught at Florida’s Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

He succeeds Mamadi Toure, who has been appointed as a counsellor to the presidency.

Conde is due to appoint 20 more ministers, although it is not clear when he will do so.

Guinea is a poor country despite rich deposits of bauxite, gold and diamonds, that has known little political stability since its independence from France in 1958.