CAIRO, (Reuters) – Egypt’s army-backed leaders swore in a new interim cabinet yesterday after a night of street violence, with not a single minister representing either of the main Islamist groups that have won five straight elections since 2011. Seven people were killed overnight and more than 260 wounded in running battles between supporters of toppled president Mohamed Mursi and the security forces.
In an ornate hall in the presidential palace, 33 mainly liberal and technocratic ministers took turns being sworn in by Adli Mansour, a burly judge installed as interim head of state by the army when it deposed Mursi on July 3.
The armed forces chief who removed him, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, was given the post of first deputy to interim Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi, a 76-year-old liberal economist who has been given the task of implementing a “road map” to restore civilian rule and repair a crumbling economy.
Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood movement fumed.
“It’s an illegitimate government, an illegitimate prime minister, an illegitimate cabinet. We don’t recognise anyone in it. We don’t even recognise their authority as representatives of the government,” its spokesman Gehad El-Haddad told Reuters. Not one of the new ministers is from either Mursi’s Brotherhood or Nour, the other main Islamist group. Together they have won two parliamentary elections, a presidential vote and two constitutional referendums since the 2011 uprising that brought down long-serving, army-backed autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
The army said it was carrying out the popular will when it removed Mursi after millions took to the streets to demand his resignation at the end of June.
A spokesman for interim president Mansour said Nour and the Brotherhood had both been offered cabinet posts and he believed they would participate in the transition.
The Brotherhood said it would never yield in its demand for Mursi’s return. Nour said it was reserving its judgment on the cabinet for now.
Crisis in the Arab world’s most populous state, which straddles the Suez Canal and has a strategic peace treaty with Israel, raises alarm for its allies in the region and the West. Mursi’s removal has bitterly divided Egypt, with thousands of his supporters maintaining a vigil in a Cairo square to demand his return, swelling to tens of thousands for mass demonstrations every few days.
The ousted president is being held incommunicado at an undisclosed location. He has not been charged with any crime but the authorities say they are investigating him over complaints of inciting violence, spying and wrecking the economy.
Two people were killed at a bridge across the Nile in central Cairo and another five were killed in the district of Giza overnight in the worst violence in a week, said the head of emergency services, Mohamed Sultan. More than 400 were arrested. “We were crouched on the ground, we were praying. Suddenly there was shouting. We looked up and the police were on the bridge firing tear gas down on us,” said pro-Mursi protester Adel Asman, 42, who was coughing, spitting and pouring Pepsi on his eyes to ease the effect of teargas.
