CAIRO \u2014 Egyptian officials announced a new government on Tuesday that excluded members of the country\u2019s influential Islamist parties, including the Muslim Brotherhood, and appeared to give an expanded role to the country\u2019s powerful military chief.<\/p>\n
The new cabinet, led by one of Egypt\u2019s most prominent economists, replaces the government of President Mohamed Morsi, who was deposed by the military nearly two weeks ago after mass protests against his rule. The formation of the government is part of a military-led transition plan that is supposed to lead to parliamentary elections within six months.<\/p>\n
Analysts praised the diversity of the new cabinet, which included three women, and said it was well qualified to tackle Egypt\u2019s escalating crises, including an economy in free-fall. At the same, they said, any government that owed its existence to the army, rather than voters, and excluded Islamists, Egypt\u2019s most successful electoral force, faced immediate questions about its legitimacy.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Egypt\u2019s interim president denied that anyone had been \u201cexcluded\u201d and said that positions had been offered to members of the Brotherhood as well as the ultraconservative Nour party.<\/p>\n
But Gehad el-Haddad, a spokesman for the Brotherhood, which is demanding the reinstatement of Mr. Morsi as president after what it said was a military coup, said the party was never offered any posts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole thing is illegitimate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The army chief, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, who already serves as defense minister, added the title of first deputy to the interim prime minister, although his specific powers remained vague. General Sisi has appeared to serve as the de facto head of government since he ousted Mr. Morsi and appointed an interim president, Adli Mansour. Click here for the full story.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" CAIRO \u2014 Egyptian officials announced a new government on Tuesday that excluded members of the country\u2019s influential Islamist parties, including the Muslim Brotherhood, and appeared to give an expanded role to the country\u2019s powerful military chief. The new cabinet, led by one of Egypt\u2019s most prominent economists, replaces the government of President Mohamed Morsi, who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-important-news-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36600"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36601,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36600\/revisions\/36601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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