Thursday, March 3, 2011

Egyptian military fire prime minister Ahmed Shafiq

Essam Sharaf, the new prime minister (photo Al-Masry al-Youm).


The Egyptian military have fired the cabinet of prime minister Ahmed Shafiq. In his place they appointed former transport minister Essam Sharaf. Sharaf, who served as a minister from 2002-2004 and after that became a professor at Cairo University,  only heard about his nomination on Thursday morning. He immediately  started consultations to form a new cabinet.
The firing of Shafiq, who was appointed by former president Mubarak only days before he himself left office, was done in a clear attempt to defuse the tension of the repeated street protests during which was demanded to fire the government, whichy - apart from Shafiq himself - contained several ministers from the period Mubarak, like minister of foreign affairs Abul Gheit or justice minister Marei. For tomorrow, Friday, a call for a new demonstration had gone out already. 

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