Zanzibar president appoints 15 new ministers

Zanzibar President Ali Mohammed Shein on Saturday appointed 15 new ministers and seven deputy ministers to serve his cabinet for the next five years.

Shein made the appointment of the ministers following his re-election in the March 20 re-run elections that were boycotted by the east African archipelago's leading opposition party -- the Civic United Front (CUF).

Out of the 15 ministers, seven were presidential appointees to the House of Representatives, six were constituency members of the House of Representatives and the remaining two were special seats representatives.

Two of the newly appointment ministers were from minor opposition parties.

However, Shein said no opposition party had met the Zanzibar constitutional requirements for the power sharing arrangement.

In his previous administration from 2010 to 2015, Shein had 19 ministers and the same number of deputy ministers.

Announcing the appointment at Zanzibar State House, the president said he expected the ministers to work hard, adding that he "will not hesitate sacking underperforming ministers".

He urged the ministers to be at the forefront towards the fight against injustice and corruption.

President Shein will swear in the ministers on Sunday.

The re-run polls were held after results of the October 25 elections were annulled, three days after the polls, by the Zanzibar Electoral Commission (ZEC) chairman Jecha Salim Jecha on what he described as massive irregularities.

ZEC declared incumbent Zanzibar President Shein winner of the re-run presidential polls after he had garnered 299,982 votes, accounting for 91.4 percent of the votes cast.

Opposition CUF boycotted the polls, insisting that it had won in the October elections, and called on its supporters not to vote. Endit