Army appointed new cabinet swears in Egypt

CAIRO - Agence France-Presse

Egyptian police, soldiers stand outside a polling station. REUTERS photo

Egypt’s caretaker premier named a new cabinet yesterday charged with tackling worsening crime and a sliding economy after the first round of elections showing a landslide victory for Islamist parties.

Interim PM Kamal al-Ganzuri announced his administration following nearly two weeks of delays, reportedly caused by problems in finding a suitable candidate to fill the highly sensitive interior ministry post. He finally opted for Mohammed Ibrahim Yusuf, who headed police in the district of Giza in Cairo, who was sworn in in front of the head of Egypt’s ruling military council Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, state television said.

 Police have been accused of brutally handling recent protests against Tantawi, in which 43 people have died, and crime is widely seen as having increased since the ousting of former strongman Hosni Mubarak in February.

Foreign Minister Mohammed Kamel Amr was retained from the former cabinet which resigned in November in the face of escalating protests, while Mumtaz Said was named as finance minister. Ganzuri, speaking to reporters on Tuesday night, called on all political parties to pull together behind his administration, billed as a “national salvation government.” “We can’t leave security and the economy like this,” he said.

The Muslim Brotherhood said its Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) had won 36 out of 54 individual seats up for grabs in the first phase of the multi-stage parliamentary polls. In a separate party vote, which will see more than a 100 seats distributed, it won 36.6 percent while the hardline Islamic fundamentalist party Al-Nour came second with 24.4 percent. Al-Nour won five seats in the run off, party spokesman Mohammed Nour said.