Egypt’s new president asserts authority

Egypt’s new president asserts authority (AP) / 7 July 2013 Egypt’s new president moved to assert his authority and regain control of the streets Saturday even as his opponents declared his powers illegitimate and issued blood oaths to reinstate Mohammed Mursi, whose ouster by the military has led to duelling protests and deadly street battles between rival sides. But underscoring the sharp divisions facing the untested leader, Adly Mansour, his office said pro-reform leader Mohamed El Baradei had been named as interim prime minister but later backtracked on the decision saying consultations were continuing. Mansour’s administration, meanwhile, has begun trying to dismantle Mursi’s legacy. He replaced Mursi’s intelligence chief and the presidential palace’s chief of staff. Prosecutors, meanwhile, ordered four detained stalwarts of Mursi’s Brotherhood held for 15 days pending an investigation into the shooting deaths of eight protesters last week. No major violence was reported between supporters and opponents of Mursi as the two sides sought to regroup after a night of fierce clashes that turned downtown Cairo into a battlefield. Clashes were also fierce in the port city of Alexandria, where thousands from both sides fought each other with automatic rifles, firebombs and clubs. Friday’s violence left 36 dead, taking to at least 75 the number of people killed since the unrest began on June 30, when millions of protesters took to the streets on the anniversary of Mursi’s inauguration as Egypt’s first democratically elected president. Mursi, a U.S.-trained engineer who was widely accused by critics of monopolizing power for himself and the Brotherhood as well as his failure to implement democratic and economic reforms, remained under detention in an undisclosed location.  “El-Sissi is a traitor,” declared an English language banner bearing an image of the army’s chief and hoisted by Mursi’s supporters. Setting up another showdown, the youth opposition group behind the series of mass protests that led to Mursi’s ouster called on Egyptians to take to the streets on Sunday to show support for the new order. Mansour, 67, the former chief justice of the country’s Supreme Constitutional Court who was installed by the military as an interim leader, is little-known in international circles and the choice of El Baradei would have given his administration a prominent global face to make its case to Washington and other Western allies trying to reassess policies. But news of El Baradei’s appointment, which was reported by the state news agency MENA and others, proved divisive. The 71-year-old Nobel laureate was an inspiring figure to the youth groups behind the 2011 revolution that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak as well as the uprising against Mursi. His appointment as prime minister would cement Mansour’s support among the young anti-Mursi protesters. Mansour’s spokesman Ahmed el Musalamani denied that the appointment of the former U.N. nuclear negotiator was ever certain. However, reporters gathered at the presidential palace ahead of his news conference were told earlier that the president would arrive shortly to announce it. The dispute over El Baradei underlines the fragmentation of Egypt’s politics as the country continues to be roiled by bout after bout of unrest and violence since Mubarak’s ouster. The 2011 uprising opened the way for the political rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was long suppressed by Mubarak’s Western-backed regime, and Mursi was elected last year by a narrow margin. The fundamentalist movement swiftly rejected El Baradei’s appointment. The Brotherhood has vowed to boycott the political process, saying the military manoeuvre was a coup that overturned a democratically elected government. “Now it’s clear that the Mubarak regime has the upper hand,” Brotherhood spokesman Ahmed Aref alleged. “We cannot accept the strategy of arm twisting; we cannot accept the authority being snatched by force,” he told The AP. The group’s powerful deputy Khairat el-Shater, former leader Mahdi Akef, Rashad Bayoumi and Saad el-Ketatni have been accused of inciting violence against protesters in Cairo. The silver-haired new president, meanwhile, insisted national reconciliation was his top priority. Taylor Scott International