In a surprise move, Mutharika did not appoint opposition leader Gwanda Chakuamba who earlier this month dropped a court challenge of the May 20 elections in exchange for a promised post in government.
State radio quoted an announcement from Mutharika's office in the capital of Lilongwe as saying that the president and Vice President Cassim Chilumpha had taken personal charge of some portfolios and that the position of second vice president had been left vacant.
Economist Goodall Gondwe, a former senior official of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), was named finance minister, tasked with trying to resume international aid flows to Malawi.
More than $75-million in aid was suspended in 2002 by the IMF and donor countries due to concerns about overspending by the former administration of president Bakili Muluzi, who handed over power to his chosen successor Mutharika last month.
Opposition politician David Faiti was named economic planning and development minister and Chakufwa Chihana, leader of the Alliance for Democracy (Aford), was appointed to head the key portfolio of agriculture.
Mutharika will also head the defence ministry and the civil service, which has 120 000 people on its payroll, while his vice president is also named minister of statutory corporations, overseeing Malawi's parastatals.
A political neophyte, George Chaponda, from Mutharika's governing United Democratic Front, was named foreign minister.
Only eight ministers from Muluzi's cabinet of 46 remain in government.
Wedged between Mozambique and Zambia, Malawi is one of the world's poorest nations with most people living on less than a dollar a day.
The UN Development Programme rates Malawi as the third poorest country in the world after Sierra Leone and Tanzania.
The former British colony is also one of the hardest-hit by the Aids crisis, which has brought life expectancy down to 36.
In another twist, the personal physician of former dictator Kamuzu Banda, who ruled Malawi for 30 years, Hetherwick Ntaba, was appointed health minister.
Banda, who proclaimed himself president-for-life, was defeated in Malawi's first multi-party elections in 1994 to Muzuli, who in turn reluctantly stepped down from office and chose Mutharika to run as his party's presidential candidate.
Chakuamba, the candidate of the main opposition in last month's elections - Malawi's third democratic poll - declined to take a cabinet post because he wanted to retire from politics after 40 years, said a top aide.
"He didn't want to be in cabinet. He is getting out of politics and will concentrate on his private life like farming," said Faiti, a member of Chakuamba's Republican Party who was given the economic planning and development portfolio.
Two other members of the Republic Party won cabinet appointments: Bazula Mhango as lands minister and Khumbo Chirwa as minister for industry, science and technology.
The secretary of the presidency and the cabinet, Bright Msaka, told state radio that the appointments were based on "individual merit, religion and gender balance."
"More deserving Malawians have been left out and the president is appealing for understanding and support," Msaka said. - Sapa-AFP
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