Egypt: PM Sharaf shuffles Cabinet

Egyptian interim Prime Minister Essam Sharaf on Saturday appointed a veteran economist and liberal party activist as new deputies in his recent Cabinet shuffle in an effort to appease continued protests in the country, which have recently turned against the embattled PM.

Sharaf appointed former United Nations official and economics professor Hazem Beblawi and Ali al-Silmi, a senior member of the liberal Wafd party, the state-run MENA news agency reported.

Beblawi, a former undersecretary of the UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, will oversee economic policy in the new cabinet, which is expected to be unveiled on Monday.

Silmi will handle “democratic transition” matters, it added.

Protesters have been conducting a sit-in since July 8 in Cairo’s central Tahrir Square, also the focal point of the 18-day demonstrations that forced President Hosni Mubarak to resign on February 11.

Subsequent protests persuaded the military, which temporarily assumed power, to sack Mubarak’s surviving cabinet in March and appoint a new caretaker government headed by the pro-revolt Sharaf.