Egypt cabinet resigns, paves way for military chief’s takeover

Egypt's interim cabinet resigned Monday in a surprise move that could pave the way for the nation's military chief, Field Marshal Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, to announce his widely anticipated plans to run for president in the spring.

The resignation, announced by Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi in a televised statement, came amid a wave of labour strikes over the government's failure to fix the economy and rising popular anger nearly a year after Islamist President Mohammed Morsi was ousted by the military, led by el-Sisi.

The cabinet will remain in office in a caretaking capacity until a new one is formed.

''The Cabinet has, in the last six or seven months, responsibly and dutifully shouldered a very difficult and delicate burden, and I believe that, in most cases, we have achieved good results,'' the outgoing prime minister said. ''But like any endeavour, it cannot all be success but rather within the boundaries of what is humanly possible.''

El-Sisi, a 59-year-old career infantry officer, has been defence minister since Morsi named him to the post in August 2012. He has already secured the support of Egypt's top military body, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, to seek the presidency.

Military and security officials said the British and US trained el-Sissi has been working with a team of advisers on a programme of action that he intends to announce when he declares his candidacy.

El-Beblawi did not say why his cabinet was resigning. His military-backed government was sworn in in July, less than two weeks after el-Sissi ousted Morsi (See: Egypt ousts Morsi, installs chief justice as interim head). Since then, the military chief has been increasingly acting in a presidential fashion.

He paid a highly publicised visit to Russia earlier this month, when he secured the Kremlin's blessing for his likely presidential bid and negotiated a large arms deal.

Last week, his wife made her first public appearance since he became defence minister. Intisar el-Sissi was seated next to him during a ceremony to honour senior officers.

Thousands of el-Sissi posters are plastered on walls and hoisted on lampposts across much of the country. Songs praising him are played on radio and blare from coffee shops. He has often been likened to a lion and Arab nationalist leader Gamal Abdel-Nasser and portrayed as a saviour who will bring strength and prosperity to Egypt.

A new constitution adopted in a referendum last month gives the military the exclusive right to pick the defence minister for the next two presidential terms, of four years each. In Egypt, the defence minister is routinely the armed forces' commander in chief.

So if el-Sissi, as expected, is left out of the next cabinet lineup, that will most likely mean that his announcement on a presidential bid is imminent. His chief of staff, Gen. Sobhi Sedki, is expected to succeed him.

El-Beblawi's government is likely to be remembered for authorizing security forces in August to storm pro-Morsi sit-in protests in Cairo - a crackdown that killed hundreds - and for labelling the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.

El-Beblawi has been heavily criticized for failing to prevent high-profile terror attacks blamed on pro-Morsi militants. In the last seven months, several security headquarters have been bombed and dozens of policemen, some in key intelligence jobs, gunned down in the streets. Authorities daily announce the seizures of extensive caches of arms and explosives.

The latest wave of labour unrest to hit Egypt included strikes by public transport workers and garbage collectors and a partial stoppage by doctors. An acute shortage of cooking gas cylinders has also fed popular frustration. This week also saw the end of a crippling, 11-day strike by thousands of textile workers in the industrial city of Mahalla in the Nile Delta.