E.Guinea president reappoints same team after polls

Malabo, Equatorial Guinea | AFP | Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has reappointed his prime minister after dissolving the government last week.

“Making use of the powers granted to me by law, I appoint Francisco Pascual Obama Asue as Prime Minister in charge of administrative coordination,” said a presidential decree, read on national television on Monday night.

Obiang also renamed the three deputy prime ministers to their posts.

Further appointments to his team are due to be announced later this week.

The outgoing government, formed after the April 2016 presidential election, was dissolved on Friday following legislative, senatorial and municipal elections in November, in accordance with the law.

The ruling Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea maintained its firm grip on power in the November vote, which was widely criticised by the opposition as fraudulent.

The ruling party won 99 of the parliament’s 100 seats, while the main opposition party, Citizens for Innovation, won the remaining seat and said it had been subjected to a major crackdown, with scores of its members arrested.

Obiang, 75, seized power in the small former Spanish colony in 1979 and has faced a string of coup attempts during his nearly four decades in office.

Critics accuse him of brutal repression of opponents as well as election fraud and corruption.

Equatorial Guinea has become one of sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest oil producers, but a large proportion of its 1.2 million population lives in poverty.