Guinea President Criticized over 'Closed' New Government

Guinea's President Alpha Conde was criticized Tuesday for appointing a government described by opposition activists and analysts as stuffed with apolitical technocrats who would offer no dissent.

Conde issued a decree on Monday forming a new administration that kept in place his prime minister and more than half the cabinet but excluded any opposition figures.

"This is a government which is closed in on itself... It is not a government of development or openness," said Aboubacar Sylla, a spokesman for the opposition.

Leading trade unionist Alfa Ibrahima Manet said Conde had picked ministers "who cannot under any circumstances interfere, nor challenge".

Prime Minister Mohamed Said Fofana -- who was reinstated on Saturday despite resigning just three days earlier -- will continue to head the 34-minister government, the decree said.

Nineteen ministers will stay on, either in their previous portfolios or swapping to different ones, but another 15 were replaced.

Conde snubbed several allies to shake up his Rally of the Guinean People (RGP) party, fearing they may become future obstacles to his plans, International Crisis Group analyst Vincent Foucher told Agence France Presse.

"It looks like a 'targeted government'. On a number of key ministries such as mining, energy and agriculture, we have people who are technicians, officials not known for a direct role in politics," Foucher said.

The decree comes in the wake of September 28 polls that gave the RGP and its junior partners an absolute majority in the parliament, which began sitting last week.

The elections, while criticized by the opposition and international observers as flawed, were meant to be part of the west African nation's return to democracy following years of unrest.

Fofana, who has held the premiership for the past three years, was quoted last week in a presidential statement as saying that he and his government were stepping down.

But Conde said in a decree broadcast Saturday on state television that Fofana would be reassuming his post, without elaborating.

The election had been repeatedly delayed since the country's first democratic poll in 2010, stoking deadly ethnic tensions that have dogged Guinean politics since independence from France in 1958.

Despite its great mineral wealth, more than half of Guineans have to get by on less than a dollar a day.

Conde has carried out numerous reforms, particularly in the important mining sector.