President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of Sierra Leone has named a new 22-member cabinet following his landslide victory in last week's parliamentary and presidential polls.

He replaced the people holding key foreign, interior and finance posts, while keeping for himself the defence portfolio, and appointed three women ministers.

Kabbah campaigned as a peacemaker

The new Vice President, Solomon Berewa, has given up his Justice Ministry portfolio - a move which correspondents say will please donors and human rights groups who are wary of too much power being concentrated in one person's hands.

Contrary to expectations, the new cabinet includes neither political opponents nor former rebels who dropped their guns to participate in the elections.

The new line-up consists mainly of ruling party stalwarts and prominent members of civic society groups.

But the new Information Minister, Septimus Kai Kai, insisted the cabinet was one of "inclusion" which took into account "regional balance, age and gender".

The new cabinet includes:

• Finance Minister Joseph Dauda, a former vice president who has moved from the Rural Development Ministry.
• Interior Minister Hinga Norman, leader of a pro-Kabbah militia during the war.
• Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Momodu Koroma, a former presidential affairs minister.
• Justice Minister Eke Halloway, a prominent lawyer.
• Three women: Minister of Health and Sanitation Agnes Taylor-Lewis, Minister of Trade and Industry Kadi Sesay and Minister of Social Welfare Shirley Gbujama.

The cabinet will have to be approved by parliament when it convenes on 14 June, in accordance with the constitution.

President Kabbah's inauguration is due on 7 June, and seven African heads of state are expected to attend, an official in the foreign affairs ministry told the French news agency AFP.