Cars drive past posters of then military junta leader Col. Mamady Doumbouya, the current interim President, on the street in Conakry, Guinea, Sept 14, 2021. (PHOTO / AP)

Transitional authorities in junta-led Guinea have appointed one-time opposition leader and economist Mamadou Oury Bah to the role of prime minister, according to a decree read on national television on Tuesday.

The political veteran faces a challenging task setting up a government amid an indefinite general strike launched this week.

Television footage showed Bah taking the oath of office in front of interim President Mamady Doumbouya

ALSO READ: Guinea's government dissolved by presidential decree

Television footage showed Bah taking the oath of office in front of interim President Mamady Doumbouya, a special forces commander who ousted former President Alpha Conde in a coup in 2021.

Bah, commonly known as Bah Oury, has been a prominent figure on the Guinean political scene since the early nineties. He served as minister of reconciliation in a consensus government in the wake of a political crisis triggered by the killing of at least 130 people in union-led protests in 2007.

READ MORE: Guinea swears in coup leader as interim president

The founder and vice-president of the UFDG party later spent four years in exile in France, during which time he was convicted in absentia for a 2011 assassination attempt against Conde. He returned to Guinea in 2016 following a presidential pardon, but was later pushed out of UFDG.