Guinea-Bissau president names new premier in bid to end political crisis

Guinea-Bissau’s President Jose Mario Vaz named a new prime minister late on Tuesday, in a bid to end a political crisis.

Augusto Antonio Artur Da Silva was appointed by decree after the previous PM Umaro Sissoco Embalo resigned.

The West African nation has been in power struggle since August 2015, when Vaz sacked then prime minister Domingos Simoes Pereira.

The new prime minister’s first job will be to organise new parliamentary elections in the coming months.

Tuesday’s presidential decree said Da Silva’s appointment was part of “ongoing efforts to find a definitive solution to political-constitutional crisis which has hit the country in recent years”.

During the ECOWAS summit last month, the west African bloc urged Guinea-Bissau’s leaders to resolve the crisis within two months, or else face sanctions

The nation has been plagued by military coups and instability since its independence from Portugal in 1974.