Egypt: President Morsi Appoints New PM
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi appointed Tuesday the outgoing Minister of Irrigation Hisham Qandil as the next Prime Minister, reported the Egyptian public television.
The announcement came 25 days after the inauguration of Mr. Morsi, Egypt’s first civilian president since 1952.
Qandil, aged 50, was part of the outgoing caretaker government of Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri, appointed last year by the military council.
The Prime Minister-designate is holding an engineering degree from Cairo University in 1984 and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina in 1993. In the past, he assumed senior positions in the Egyptian administration, including the Ministry of Irrigation.
Mr. Morsi became on June 24 the fifth President of the Republic of Egypt and the first to have been freely elected. He promised that his next prime minister would be an independent person.
In a press statement, the spokesman of Morsi, Yasser Ali, said the president appointed an independent person to form the new government and hoped that its formation would be announced as soon as possible.
Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world with over 80 million people, has seen since the downfall of the regime of Hosni Mubarak a severe crisis, marked by a decline in tourism, a collapse in foreign investment, a rapid drop its foreign currency reserves and a worsening budget deficit.
