Outgoing housing minister Ibrahim Mahlab has been named Egypt’s new prime minister and tasked with forming a government, a day after the previous military-installed cabinet resigned, state newspaper Al-Ahram reported Tuesday.

Outgoing housing minister Ibrahim Mahlab has been named Egypt's new prime minister and tasked with forming a government, a day after the previous military-installed cabinet resigned, state newspaper Al-Ahram reported Tuesday.

The government of Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi resigned en masse Monday in a surprise move ahead of a presidential poll that is likely to bring outgoing defense minister and army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to power.

Mahlab has met with interim president Adly Mansour, who "officially tasked (me) with forming a new government," the newspaper quoted Mahlab as saying.

Mahlab, an engineer, was a member of the National Democratic Party (NDP) of Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled after 30 years in power by an Arab Spring-inspired uprising in 2011.

Egypt is due to hold the presidential election by mid-April, and defense minister and army chief Field Marshal Sisi is widely tipped to win the poll if he stands.

But Sisi has to resign from the government and the army before he can officially announce his bid to run for president.

Beblawi's government was appointed in July after Sisi ousted Mohammad Mursi, Egypt's first elected and civilian president.