CAIRO // Egypt’s entire governing cabinet resigned on Monday.
The prime minister Hazem El Beblawi announced the mass resignations in a live TV broadcast amid crippling strikes by public service workers and growing criticism of economic and security failures.
He said the cabinet would remain in place until a new one has been announced.
Mr El Beblawi, an economist, and his military-backed government of technocrats were sworn in on July 16, less than two weeks after Field Marshal Abdel Fattah El Sisi, the defence minister, led the removal of the deeply unpopular Islamist president Mohammed Morsi.
The key question now is whether Field Marshall El Sisi, the de facto ruler, will remain defence minister in the new cabinet. If a new minister is appointed observers believe the widely expected announcement that he will run for president is imminent.
Field Marshall El Sisi has secured the support of Egypt’s top military body, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, to launch a presidential bid.
The career infantry officer trained in Britain and the United States has already been acting in a presidential manner. He made a highly publicised visit to Russia this month, when he secured the Kremlin’s goodwill and its blessing for his presidential bid, and negotiated a large arms deal.
Last week, his wife made her first public appearance since Mr Morsi’s removal, seated next to her husband at a military ceremony.
Field Marshall El Sisi also enjoys the confidence of Egypt’s economic backers, including the UAE, which has sent billions of dollars in aid to stabilise the country after its political upheaval.
Egypt adopted a new constitution last month drafted by a mostly liberal and secular panel and two months ahead of a presidential election, now expected to be held in April. The constitution gives the military the right to pick the defence minister for the next two four-year presidential terms.
In Egypt, the defence minister is routinely the armed forces’ commander in chief, so if Field Marshall El Sisi is not in the cabinet he would be in a vacuum unless he announces his presidential candidacy.
Observers with ties to the military have tipped Chief of Staff Gen Sedki Subhi to be the next defence minister.
While Monday’s mass resignation was unexpected, the prime minister has suffered widespread derision over his perceived indecision and inability to address economic problems.
Public transport workers and rubbish collectors are on strike and there are complaints of an acute shortage of cooking gas.
Mr El Beblawi has also been criticised for the security forces’ inability to prevent high-profile terror attacks blamed on militants sympathetic to Mr Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood.
He acknowledged the difficult conditions in which his cabinet functioned, but argued that Egypt was in a better place now that when he took office. He pointed out that while members of his cabinet may not have represented the nation’s top talents, they were experts in their fields who accepted cabinet posts at a very difficult time.
“The cabinet has, in the last six or seven months, responsibly and dutifully shouldered a very difficult and delicate burden and I believe that, in most cases, we have achieved good results,” he said.
“But like any endeavour, it cannot all be success but rather within the boundaries of what is humanly possible.” The goal, he said, was to take Egypt out of a “narrow tunnel” brought about by security, political and economic pressures.
He told the striking workers this was not the time to make demands. “We must sacrifice our personal and narrow interests for the benefit of the nation.”
* Associated Press