Tanzanian president retains the foreign and mining ministers while appointing a new finance minister

Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan appointed Khamis Mussa Omar, the East African nation’s ambassador to China, as the finance minister in her new cabinet on Monday following a contentious election last month.

During a televised speech, Hassan said that she has kept Mahmoud Thabit Kombo as her foreign affairs minister and Anthony Mavunde as her mining minister.

The former finance minister, Mwigulu Nchemba, was appointed prime minister by Hassan last week.

Despite her overwhelming victory in the October election, Hassan’s primary opponents were excluded, and conflicts with security personnel marred the poll.

Hundreds were murdered in the riots, according to rights groups and opposition parties, but the government claims those numbers are inflated.

In her most public acknowledgement of the unrest, which has resulted in the nation’s worst political crisis in decades, Hassan committed to looking into the election violence and on Friday expressed her sympathies to the families of those who had lost loved ones.