Outgoing housing minister Ibrahim Mahlab, a former official in the deposed Hosni Mubarak government, was today named as Egypt’s new prime minister, a day after the military-backed cabinet resigned unexpectedly.
Mahlab said he was “officially tasked with forming a new government” by interim president Adly Mansour, the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper reported on its website.
He said he would immediately start consultations on the appointment of a new cabinet.
Mahlab, who resigned as housing minister yesterday, was a member of the National Democratic Party of Mubarak, whose 30-year reign came to an end with the 2011 popular uprising.
Now in his sixties, Mahlab is a civil engineer who formerly served as chairman and chief executive of the Arab Contractors Company, a large Egyptian civil engineering firm.
Egypt’s military-installed interim government led by Prime Minister Hazem El-Beblawi yesterday resigned in a surprise move ahead of presidential polls that may bring the country’s powerful army chief Field Marshal Abdul Fattah al-Sisi to power.
Beblawi announced the decision after a cabinet meeting attended by Sisi, also the Defence Minister.
