Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, who on behalf of the military ousted President Mohamed Morsi on July 3, stayed at the post of defense minister. He will also be the first deputy prime minister.
The other two deputy prime ministers were Ziad Bahaa-Eddin and Hossam Eissa, who will lead the Ministry of International Cooperation and the Ministry of Higher Eduction respectively.
The 33-minister lineup includes three females, namely Maha Zein el-Aabdeen, minister of health and population, Laylah Rashid Exander, minister of environment affairs, and Doriah Sharaf el-Din, minister of culture.
The transportation minister is not included in the new lineup.
The ministry of planning and international cooperation was split into two ministries, with the new Planning Ministry led by Ashraf el-Arabi.
The Justice Ministry was remolded into the Ministry of Transitional Justice and Reconciliation, headed by Mohamed Mahdi, while the Ministry of Legal and Parliamentary Affairs was not included in the new lineup.
At least five ministers from the former cabinet kept their posts, including those of tourism, interior affairs, electricity, defense and communication.
Four senior figures from the National Salvation Front, the main opposition group during Morsi’s presidency, are included in the new cabinet: Eissa, Industry and Trade Minister Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour, International Cooperation Minister Ziad Bahaa-Eddin, and Social Solidarity Minister Ahmed Hassan el-Borai.
The cabinet is the first since Morsi’s ouster and the fifth since the start of unrest in 2011. It is an interim cabinet composed mainly of technocrats and liberals for a transitional period, before a permanent government is in place. Parliamentary elections are expected to be held in about six months.
A spokesman for Interim President Adli Mansour said the Muslim Brotherhood and its ally, the ultra-conservative Salafist Al-Nour Party, had both been offered cabinet posts.
But the Brotherhood said it would not budge from its demand for Morsi’s return and rejected the offer to take part in the new cabinet.
“We don’t recognise its legitimacy or its authority,” it said in a statement.
A report by official news agency MENA said EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will meet with leaders of the interim government and other political forces as well as civil society to stress the necessity for Egypt to return as soon as possible to its democratic transition.
The United States praised the formation of the interim government in Egypt.
“The transitional period has just started and Egypt now has an interim president and the government was sworn in,” State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told a news briefing.
He reiterated Washington’s “desire to have an inclusive, tolerant, democratic future for Egypt.”
After the new cabinet was sworn in, Mansour convened the first meeting of the cabinet at the presidential palace, mainly devoted to economic and security issues. The meeting was also attended by Mohamed ElBaradei, vice president for international relations.
Morse’s supporters who have been camping outside Rabaa Al-Adawiya Mosque for more than two weeks, voiced their rejection of the new cabinet after it was sworn in Tuesday.
At the same time, the Alliance of Islamic Parties called for mass demonstrations on Wednesday to show their support for the ousted president.
On Tuesday, Cairo prosecutorial authorities ordered the detention of 70 suspects over possible charges of attempting to storm a police station Monday night during clashes between supporters and opponents of Morsi in Ramses Street, which left seven people dead.
– BERNAMA
