Guinea-Bissau – New government

In Guinea-Bissau, jeuneafrique is reporting that a new government has finally been formed following the elections last November.

As expected, the prime minister is Carlos Gomes Junior. The government comprises 21 ministers and 10 secretaries of state. Interestingly, all the members of the government are from the PAIGC party. The PAIGC convincingly won the election, but there had been some talk of opening the government up to the opposition. However, jeuneafrique reports that the party’s ruling body voted against such a policy.

The next few months and years promises to create some interesting presidential/prime ministerial dynamics. The president, Nino Vieira, is a PAIGC dissident, and he won the 2005 presidential election against the official PAIGC candidate. Moreover, in November 2005, just a month after taking office, President Vieira sacked Carlos Gomes Junior as prime minister.

It is an academic question as to whether the creation of the new government establishes a period of cohabitation. I define cohabitation as the situation where the president is from one party, where the prime minister is from an opposition party and where the president’s party is not represented in government. In one sense, Guinea-Bissau now meets this definition. All the more so given that the PRID party at the last election was, in effect, President’s Vieira’s election vehicle. However, it polled poorly and the PAIGC won the election. That said, worldstatesmen.org still classes President Vieira as being from the PAIGC. So, on the basis of this source, we do not have a period of cohabitation because the president and PM are still, nominally, from the same party. Also, to my knowledge, President Vieira is not formally a member of the PRID. Any thoughts or clarifications are welcome.

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