ElBaradei not appointed PM: Egyptian presidential spokesman

The appointment of prominent Egyptian politician Mohamed ElBaradei as the country’s interim prime minister has hit a snag.

Egyptian state media and several senior officials said on Saturday that interim Egyptian President Adly Mahmud Mansour had decided to appoint pro-reform leader and Nobel Peace prizewinner ElBaradei as the interim prime minister of the country and that he would take oath on Saturday evening — three days after the army removed President Mohammed Morsi from power in a military coup and suspended the constitution.

However, on Saturday night Mansour backtracked on the decision.

Mansour’s spokesman Ahmed al-Muslimani said ElBaradei was not appointed to be the next prime minister, adding that there were several options for the job and the president had to take account of opposition to ElBaradei.

“Interim President Adly Mansour met today with Dr. ElBaradei but so far there has been no official appointment,” Muslimani told reporters in Cairo just before midnight.

However, he added that ElBaradei was “the logical choice” among a list of names being considered for the post.

Within a couple of hours of the news that ElBaradei would be named, the Muslim Brotherhood’s the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) and al-Nour Party — two main political parties in the country — rejected ElBaradei’s appointment.

“We reject this coup and all that results from it, including ElBaradei,” an official from the Freedom and Justice Party said.

Ahmed Khalil, the deputy leader of al-Nour Party, said that the party would withdraw from the military’s roadmap if ElBaradei was confirmed in his post.

“The nomination of ElBaradei violates the roadmap that the political and national powers had agreed on with General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi,” he said, referring to the chief of the army.

On Friday, tens of thousands of Muslim Brotherhood activists and their supporters took to the streets across the country to protest against the coup, and clashes between pro-Morsi and opposition protesters and security forces left 36 people dead and more than 1,000 injured.

Badie made the remarks during a speech to tens of thousands of Brotherhood supporters gathered at Rabia al-Adawiya Mosque in Cairo.

He vowed to “complete the revolution” that toppled the Western-backed regime of former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

Badie repeatedly referred to Morsi as the president, who was removed from power after millions of people protested over his leadership, saying Morsi “is my president and your president and the president of all Egyptians.”

He vowed Morsi would return to the office soon. “God make Morsi victorious and bring him back to the palace,” Badie stated. “We are his soldiers we defend him with our lives.”

On Wednesday, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ousted Morsi, who took office in June 2012, and dissolved the country’s constitution in a move aimed at resolving the country’s political crisis.

The Egyptians launched the revolution against the pro-Israeli regime on January 25, 2011, which eventually brought an end to the 30-year dictatorship of Mubarak on February 11, 2011.