CAIRO — President Mohammed Morsi of Egypt named a prime minister Tuesday, plucking from relative obscurity the irrigation minister from the country’s interim government, according to the official Middle East News Agency.
The new prime minister is Hesham Kandil, who is known as a religious Muslim but is not a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. A technocrat who headed the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation under the interim Cabinet appointed by the Egyptian military, Kandil is a U.S.-educated engineer who is comfortable working with international agencies. At age 50, he is one of the youngest prime ministers in the country’s modern history.
Kandil will need considerable skill to assemble a Cabinet that would replace the current one, which was appointed by the military after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak.
The delay in announcing a prime minister led commentators to suggest that Morsi was having difficulty forming the kind of national-unity government that he had promised voters. There also may also be problems satisfying military leaders, who were expected to want to retain control of the security ministries.
After Morsi was elected president as the candidate of the Freedom and Justice Party, sponsored by the Muslim Brotherhood, Morsi resigned from the Brotherhood and announced that he would form a government in which all major factions in Egyptian politics would be represented.
Appearing at a news conference after meeting with Morsi, Kandil said the president would consult with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces about the position of minister of defense. He said that for the new Cabinet, “competency is the main criterion in selection,” but balancing its membership among different groups would also be a consideration. He said he expected the Cabinet to be formed in the next few days.
