CAIRO
Egyptian interim president Adly Mansour will start within hours his consultations to choose a prime minister and a coalition government of technocrats, sources close to him told the Anadolu Agency Thursday.
Mansour, the head of the constitutional court, took the oath of office as interim president only a few hours ago under a roadmap announced by the powerful military establishment Wednesday.
The roadmap includes temporarily suspending the constitution, forming a coalition government of technocrats and preparing for early presidential elections.
Under the plan, the interim president's first task would be forming an interim government replacing the government of ousted president Mohammad Morsi which was led by former Prime Minister Hisham Qandil.
A source with the National Salvation Front (NSF), the main opposition umbrella, said its general coordinator Mohammad ElBaradei will be involved in consultations with all political parties on the government formation.
“The NSF and the entire Egyptian opposition will be involved in the discussions,” the source told the AA.
“Several names from within the NSF have been discussed to take part in the government,” the source added, declining to give names.
ElBaradei, a former UN nuclear chief and a Nobel Prize Laureate, took part in the decisive meeting with the military leadership Wednesday, following which Defense Minister Abdel Fatah El-Sisi announced the new roadmap.
Addressing the nation from the same podium, ElBaradei described the measures as “putting the January 2011 Revolution back on track.”
Abdel Ghafar Shokr, a senior NSF figure, said the new government will work on three main files, namely security, economy and social justice.
He added that the new prime minister must be a technocrat with “credibility and loyalty to the revolution.”
Shokr said the NSF have several such figures including ElBaradei, renowned surgeon Mohammad Ghoneim, former central bank governor Farouk El Okdah and international law professor Hossam Issa.
“I was not offered such a position (premiership) yet, but I would immediately accept it because the interim period requires collective efforts,” Issa told the AA.
