Egypt turmoil continues with no clarity on new leader

The bloody imbroglio over Egypt's new leadership continues three days after the army booted out elected president Mohammed Morsi (See:Egypt ousts Morsi, installs chief justice as interim head).Interim president Adly Mansour said today that pro-reform leader Mohamed Elbaradei has not yet been appointed as interim prime minister, contrary to earlier reports.

Consultations were continuing, a spokesman for Mansour said.

Egypt's new officials had earlier named ElBaradei, a former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, for the post. But the announcement immediately raised the hackles of the Nour Party, which represents Salafist Islam. The party said it would not work with him.

The potential appointment of ElBaradei also angered other supporters of deposed President Morsi.

ElBaradei leads an alliance of liberal and left-wing parties, the National Salvation Front. He and other party leaders attended a meeting called by Mansour on Saturday.

In a BBC interview on Thursday, ElBaradei defended the army's intervention, saying, "We were between a rock and a hard place."

"It is a painful measure, nobody wanted that," he said. "But Mr Morsi unfortunately undermined his own legitimacy by declaring himself a few months ago as a pharaoh and then we got into a fist fight, and not a democratic process."

Ill-timed revolt?
Egypt's military, which overthrew elected leader President Mohamed Mursi on Wednesday, can ill afford a lengthy political vacuum at a time of violent upheaval and economic stagnation in the Arab world's largest nation of 84 million people.

Scenes of running street battles between pro and anti-Mursi demonstrators in Cairo, Alexandria and cities across the country have alarmed Egypt's allies, including key aid donors the United States and Europe, and Israel, with which Egypt has had a US-backed peace treaty since 1979.

At least 35 people died in violence on Friday and Saturday in fresh turmoil that came two and a half years after autocratic ruler Hosni Mubarak was toppled in a 2011 uprising.

While Sunday was calmer, crowds numbering in the hundreds of thousands gathered in different parts of Cairo.

The transitional administration, installed by the army to steer Egypt to fresh elections, put forward two possible liberal-minded choices for the key position of interim prime minister over the weekend. On both occasions the Nour Party said no.

Nour had signed up to the army's roadmap for the political transition, giving Islamist legitimacy to an audacious overthrow rejected by Islamic parties aligned to Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood. This has given it leverage over the choice of the next prime minister.

Unlike Nour, its bigger rival the Brotherhood has said it would have no part in the military-backed political process. Thousands of its supporters are camped out in a suburb of north-eastern Cairo. They are refusing to budge until their leader is restored.