Egypt’s interim prime minister, Hazem al-Beblawi is to start talks about the new government, as defiant supporters of Muslim Brotherhood protested for the return of ousted president Mohammad Mursi.
Egypt’s interim prime minister, Hazem al-Beblawi is to start talks about the new government, as defiant supporters of Muslim Brotherhood protested for the return of ousted president Mohammad Mursi.
The interim authorities in the country are pressing ahead with forming a new government amid financial help from Gulf states to shore up the faltering economy.
Official MENA news agency quoted sources as saying that Beblawi has decided on 90 percent of his proposed cabinet line-up.
The sources added that the PM will begin talks on Saturday with the nominees.
The full cabinet line-up will be finalized by the middle of next week, MENA reported.
Rival demonstrations were held in the Egyptian capital on Friday for and against Mursi.
As night fell on Cairo, tens of thousands of Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood protesters prayed and broke their fast together with an iftar meal on the first weekend of the holy month of Ramadan.
In Cairo's Tahrir Square and outside the Ittihadiya presidential palace meanwhile, hundreds of anti-Morsi protesters sat down for their own iftar meal.
Mursi's supporters had spent the day protesting outside the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque in the Nasr City neighborhood.
They held Egyptian flags and holy Quran books, and chanted slogans against the military coup that unseated Egypt's first freely elected president.
"We will continue to resist," key Brotherhood leader Safwat Hegazi told Friday's crowd.
"We will stay one or two months, or even one or two years. We won't leave here until our president, Mohamed Mousi, comes back,"
Hegazi demanded Mursi's reinstatement, immediate parliamentary elections and a committee to oversee a plan for national reconciliation.
Mohammad Yousry, a teenager at the rally, said: "I'll leave as a dead body. We will defend Morsi with our blood."
The Muslim Brotherhood posted online a picture of a leaflet it said a military helicopter had been dropping on protesters. The leaflets assured them they were safe, but warned them not to approach military installations.
Thousands also massed in support of Morsi outside the University of Cairo, watched over by a heavy security presence.
