Egypt’s interim president Adly Mansour has assigned prominent liberal economist Hazem El-Beblawi to top the administration that will be in charge of Egypt’s upcoming transitional period, Al Ahram reports.
Most of the parties involved in the talks had preferred former head of the UN nuclear watchdog and Nobel peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei for the position, but he was rejected by the Salafist Nour Party.
The appointment came soon after interim president Mansour issued a new constitutional declaration granting him legislative authority.
The constitutional declaration lays out the political roadmap that both Mansour and El-Beblawi will be expected to follow in the upcoming period.
El-Beblawi, also a co-founder of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, served as undersecretary-general at the UN between 1995 and 2000. He was minister of finance in Essam Sharaf’s cabinet from July to October 2011 during Egypt’s post-revolution army-administered transitional phase.
He resigned in October 2011 to object to clashes in Cairo’s Maspero district between military police and Coptic protesters in which 28 were killed.