Zimbabwe's newly appointed Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa.
The announcement on Tuesday came as Mugabe appointed his Cabinet in the wake of a July 31 election victory dismissed by the opposition as a fraud. The veteran president named a new line-up of Cabinet ministers that mostly brings old faces to different posts
In an official list released at state house, the veteran leader nominated Walter Chidhakwa to run the key mining portfolio and placed outgoing environment minister Francis Nhema in charge of a push to increase black ownership of the economy.
Hardliner Jonathan Moyo, the architect of sweeping, restrictive media laws a decade ago, returns to the information ministry, raising fears of a new crackdown against independent journalists.
Mugabe announced the appointments at his Harare offices. No former ministers in the last and now-defunct coalition with the opposition were retained.
Meanwhile, Mugabe's party Zanu-PF's divisive internal power battles were again at play last week as its two factions battled to control influential positions in Parliament.
Both faction leaders – party secretary for legal affairs and former defence minister Emmerson Mnangagwa and party first secretary and vice-president Joice Mujuru – allegedly jostled to get their faction members into the speaker of Parliament position.
In the end, it appeared that Mnangagwa gained the upper hand, after thwarting Mujuru’s nominations at a politburo meeting last month, and pre-politburo meeting lobbying and meetings with Mugabe. – Reuters, AFP