Interim Egyptian president Adly Mansour yesterday named liberal economist Hazem al-Beblawi, a former finance minister, as the country’s new prime minister, presidential spokesman Ahmed al-Muslimani said.
Liberal opposition chief and Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei was named vice president for foreign relations, Muslimani said.
The appointments come almost a week after the military overthrew former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi.
Photo: AFP
ElBaradei was initially tipped to lead the Cabinet, but his nomination was rejected by the Salafist al-Nur party.
The announcement came just hours after the Muslim Brotherhood had rejected a new timetable announced by the military-backed interim leadership that sets a fast track for amending the nation’s Islamist-drafted constitution and holding new parliamentary and presidential elections by early next year.
The Tamarod campaign, which launched the protests that prompted Morsi’s ouster, also slammed the country’s interim charter as “dictatorial.”
Photo: Reuters
The quick issuing of the transition plan showed how Egypt’s new leadership is shrugging off Islamists’ vows to reverse the military’s ousting of Morsi and wants to quickly entrench a post-Morsi political system.
Egypt’s military also likely aims to show the US and other Western nations that the country is moving quickly back to an elected civilian leadership.
Washington has expressed concern over the removal of Egypt’s first freely elected president, and if the US government determines that the army’s move qualifies as a coup it would have to cut off more than a US$1 billion in aid to Egypt, mostly to the military. US President Barack Obama’s administration has said doing so would not be in the US’ interests.
Egypt’s political divide was further enflamed on Monday by one of the worst single incidents of bloodshed in two-and-half years of turmoil. Security forces killed more than 50 pro-Morsi protesters in clashes at a sit-in by Islamists.
The military accused armed Islamists of sparking the fighting, but Morsi supporters said troops opened fire on them without provocation after dawn prayers.
Since then, the military and allied media have depicted the campaign to restore Morsi as increasingly violent and infused with armed extremists. Islamists, in turn, have talked of the military aiming to crush them after what they say was a coup to wreck democracy.
Essam el-Erian, a senior Brotherhood figure and deputy head of its Freedom and Justice Party, rejected the transition timetable, saying it takes the country “back to zero.”
“The cowards are not sleeping, but Egypt will not surrender. The people created their constitution with their votes,” he wrote on his Facebook page, referring to the constitution that Islamists pushed to finalization and was then passed in a national referendum during Morsi’s year in office.
He said the military and its allies were targeting “not just the president, but the nation’s identity, the rights and freedoms of the people and the democratic system enshrined in the constitution.”
Meanwhile, Tamarod took to its official Twitter account to reject the timetable.
“It is impossible to accept the [constitutional declaration — C.D.] because it founds a new dictatorship. We will hand over to the [military-installed caretaker] president an amendment to the C.D,” the group said.
Under the timetable issued on Monday by Mansour, two appointed panels would be created. One, made up of judges, would come up with amendments. The other, larger body consisting of representatives of society and political movements would debate the amendments and approve them.
The new constitution would be put to a referendum within four-and-a-half months from now. Elections for a new parliament would be held within two months of that. Once the new parliament convenes, it would have a week to set a date for presidential elections.
Meanwhile, authorities yesterday began questioning 650 people over their suspected involvement in Monday’s violence. The detainees, who were picked up over the past 24 hours, are accused of trying to storm the Cairo headquarters of the elite Republican Guard, judicial sources said.
This article has been updated since it was first published.
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
STANDING TOGETHER: Amid China’s increasingly aggressive activities, nations must join forces in detecting and dealing with incursions, a Taiwanese official said Two senior Philippine officials and one former official yesterday attended the Taiwan International Ocean Forum in Taipei, the first high-level visit since the Philippines in April lifted a ban on such travel to Taiwan. The Ocean Affairs Council hosted the two-day event at the National Taiwan University Hospital International Convention Center. Philippine Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, Coast Guard spokesman Grand Commodore Jay Tarriela and former Philippine Presidential Communications Office assistant secretary Michel del Rosario participated in the forum. More than 100 officials, experts and entrepreneurs from 15 nations participated in the forum, which included discussions on countering China’s hybrid warfare
MORE DEMOCRACY: The only solution to Taiwan’s current democratic issues involves more democracy, including Constitutional Court rulings and citizens exercising their civil rights , Lai said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is not the “motherland” of the Republic of China (ROC) and has never owned Taiwan, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. The speech was the third in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to deliver across Taiwan. Taiwan is facing external threats from China, Lai said at a Lions Clubs International banquet in Hsinchu. For example, on June 21 the army detected 12 Chinese aircraft, eight of which entered Taiwanese waters, as well as six Chinese warships that remained in the waters around Taiwan, he said. Beyond military and political intimidation, Taiwan