Guinea’s president appoints Bernard Goumou as new prime minister

Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, who leads Guinea’s military coup junta, has confirmed by decree the current Minister of Trade, Industry and SMEs, Bernard Goumou, as the new transitional Prime Minister, who had been in office on an interim basis for more than a month.

In a decree issued Saturday night, Doumbouya removes outgoing Prime Minister Mohamed Béavogui, 68, who has been in Rome, Italy, for more than a month for health reasons, as reported by the news portal Guinée News.

Doumbouya has also informed in the same decree of several ministerial changes. Thus, the Ministry of Trade will be headed by Pola Rose Pricemou, who was in charge of the Ministry of Communication, while Aminata Kaba, until then Minister of Telecommunications, will take over from Pricemou.

The military junta ruling Guinea announced in early August the dissolution of the National Front for the Defense of the Constitution (FNDC), a coalition of opposition parties and movements responsible for the main mobilizations against the current authorities of the African country.

The FNDC called for protests against the military junta to denounce the “arrogance” of the military authorities and their “systematic refusal” to open a “credible” dialogue to address the transition, while criticizing the “bloody repression and the violation of Human Rights” between July 27 and 30.

Lieutenant Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, commander of the Guinean Special Forces, along with 500 men, staged a coup d’état in the African country on September 5, 2021. The military entered the Séjoutouréya Palace and captured the then President Alpha Condé, thus ending eleven years of regime.

The Guinean uprising followed months of political crisis in the country over Condé’s decision to amend the constitution to run for a third term and his victory in the 2020 presidential election, in which the other candidates, including opposition leader Cellou Dalein Diallo, denounced fraud.