Egypt: Military-backed government resigns

CAIRO: Egypt’s interim prime minister announced Monday the resignation of his Cabinet, a surprise move that could be designed in part to pave the way for the nation’s military chief to leave his defense minister’s post to run for president.
Hazem el-Beblawi’s military-backed government was sworn in on July 16, less than two weeks after Field Marsh Abdel-Fettah el-Sissi, the defense minister, ousted Islamist President Muhammad Mursi after a year in office.
The government’s resignation, announced by el-Beblawi in a live TV broadcast, came amid a host of strikes, including one by public transport workers and garbage collectors. An acute shortage of cooking gas has also been making front page news the past few days.
It was not immediately clear whether el-Beblawi will stay at the helm of a new government or will step aside for a new prime minister.
El-Beblawi has often been derided in the media for his perceived indecisiveness and inability to introduce effective remedies for the country’s economic woes. He has also been criticized for the security forces’ inability to prevent high-profile terror attacks blamed on militants sympathetic with Mursi and his Muslim Brotherhood.
The outgoing prime minister acknowledged the difficult conditions in which his Cabinet functioned, but suggested that Egypt was in a better place now that it was when he first took office.
The Cabinet has, in the last six or seven months, responsibly and dutifully shouldered a very difficult and delicate burden and I believe that, in most cases, we have achieved good results,” he said.
“But like any endeavor, it cannot all be success but rather within the boundaries of what is humanly possible,” el-Beblawi said.
The goal, he added, was to take Egypt out of a “narrow tunnel” brought about by security, political and economic pressures.
Commenting on the flurry of strikes, the outgoing prime minister cautioned Egyptians that this was not the time for making demands. “We must sacrifice our personal and workers’ interests for the benefit of the nation.”
A presidential bid by the popular el-Sissi has been widely anticipated and leaving him out of the next Cabinet will most likely be accompanied or soon followed by an announcement by the 59-year-old soldier that he is running.
El-Sissi has already secured the support of Egypt’s top military body, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, to launch a presidential bid.
Already, the career infantry officer trained in Britain and the United States has been acting in a somewhat presidential manner. He paid a highly publicized visit to Russia earlier this month, when he secured the goodwill of the Kremlin and negotiated a large arms deal. His wife made her first public appearance since el-Sissi’s ouster of Mursi last week, seated next to him in a military ceremony.