Egypt’s
interim Prime Minister Hazem El-Beblawi sought to mend partisan rifts as he
pulled together a cabinet, while an arrest warrant for the Muslim Brotherhood’s
top leader fueled tension between Islamists and the military.
Prosecutors sought
Mohammed Badie, the head of the Brotherhood which fielded ousted President
Mohamed Mursi, and nine others on grounds they encouraged Cairo violence on
July 8 when dozens were killed by security forces. As the detention orders were
announced, Hamza Zawba, a spokesman for the Brotherhood’s political arm, said
it won’t engage in talks until Mursi is reinstated.
“We’re not going to take
part in an illegitimate process, or in talks held over the bodies of martyrs,”
Zawba said by phone yesterday. “The whole post-June 30 political process is
void,” he said, referring to the start of protests against Mursi that
culminated in his removal by the military.
El-Beblawi, who was
appointed July 9, is seeking to cobble together a team of ministers to revive a
crumbling economy and address months of political polarization. His
administration faces opposition from Mursi supporters who described the removal
of the former leader as a coup against Egypt’s first democratically elected
civilian president.
El-Beblawi said that
while he’s reaching out to various parties, it would be difficult to secure the
backing of all Egyptians for his choices, the state-run Al-Ahram reported
today.
Khaled Dawoud, spokesman
for the National Salvation Front, a bloc that opposed Mursi, said the
Brotherhood needs to “recognize the new reality.”
‘Popular Demand’
“The Muslim Brotherhood
will keep on isolating themselves further, not just by rejecting government
posts but, most importantly, by inciting violence,” he said. “They have to
admit that President Mursi went out of office not because of a military coup; he
went out of office upon popular demand.”
The arrest warrants
against Badie, deputy Brotherhood leader Mahmoud Ezzat and others named by the
state-run news agency yesterday fueled complaints by the group that there is a
crackdown against them.
The warrants are “politically motivated” and
intended to dismantle the protest movement, Brotherhood spokesman Gehad
El-Haddad wrote on his Twitter account. He decried what he said were the “same
old police state tactics.”
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