Reuters/Cairo
The appointment of liberal Egyptian politician Mohamed ElBaradei as interim prime minister hit a snag last night, as the army-backed transitional authorities were under pressure to restore order after deadly Islamist protests.
State media and officials had said earlier that the 71-year-old Nobel Peace prizewinner and former UN nuclear agency chief would be named interim prime minister yesterday evening.
But a presidential spokesman, speaking shortly before midnight, said there were several options for the job and the presidency had to take account of opposition to ElBaradei.
He mentioned no other candidates and added that there was no set date for the appointment of interim prime minister.
The Nour Party, Egypt’s second biggest Islamist force, said it opposed ElBaradei and threatened to withdraw its support for the military-backed overthrow of President Mohamed Mursi on Wednesday, which was the trigger for the bloody unrest.
A youth activist who met interim head of state Adli Mansour said the two issues were linked.
Losing Nour’s backing would significantly weaken the position of the military, removing any Islamist support from the transition process, fiercely opposed by Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood.
Generals said they had intervened in response to huge popular demonstrations calling for Mursi to resign.
Raising the risk of further clashes, Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood, the dominant Islamist force in the Arab world’s most populous nation, called for more protests today.
At least 35 people died in violence on Friday and yesterday, as pro- and anti-Mursi demonstrators fought running street battles in Cairo, Alexandria and beyond in violence that Egypt’s powerful army was barely able to contain.
Tens of thousands of Brotherhood supporters took to the streets to protest against what they called a military coup, and clashes between them, security forces and anti-Mursi protesters left more than 30 people dead.
Within minutes of the news that ElBaradei would be named, a senior Brotherhood official said that the Islamist movement would reject his candidacy and any other measures implemented by the army-backed administration.
He described ElBaradei as “Washington’s choice”, a reference to suspicions among Brotherhood members of US complicity in Mursi’s overthrow.
The Nour Party, which had endorsed the military’s road map for a transitional phase leading to fresh elections, followed.
While the ouster of Egypt’s first freely elected president was greeted with jubilation on streets crammed with millions of people, his many supporters feared a return to the suppression that the Islamists endured for decades under autocratic rulers.
The army has given few details and no timeframe for elections, adding to political uncertainty at a time when many Egyptians fear that bloodshed could polarise society still further.
Mursi’s dramatic removal and subsequent violence is the latest twist in a tumultuous two years since the fall of Hosni Mubarak in the Arab uprisings that swept the region.
Qaradawi calls Mursi ouster ‘invalid’
Influential Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi yesterday issued a religious decree, or fatwa, urging Egyptians to support overthrown Islamist president Mohamed Mursi who was toppled by the army on Wednesday. “Their every action is invalid,” Qaradawi said of “those who have overthrown the president, suspended the constitution and imposed another president and constitution” on Egypt. The Doha-based cleric published the fatwa on his Internet site. He urged “all parties and political groups in Egypt to support correctness and restore President Mursi to his legitimate post”.
“Shariah (Islamic law) imposes on all believers allegiance to the elected president, to carry out his orders and conform to his directives.”
Mursi “must remain president, and nobody can claim the right to remove him in the name of the people”, Qaradawi, 86, added. “I call on all Egyptians, men and women, young and old, rich and poor, Muslim and Christian, liberal and Islamist to join ranks to protect the gains of the revolution” that overthrew Hosni Mubarak in 2011.