The Sunday News
The government of Egyptian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab has submitted its resignation to the country’s president, Press TV reports. “The prime minister handed the government’s resignation to the president who accepted,” read a statement issued by the office of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Saturday. The statement, however, did not elaborate on the reasons behind the resignation.
Mahlab has reportedly been asked to serve as the country’s caretaker premier until the formation of new government. Sisi has assigned Sherif Ismail, the oil minister in Mahlab’s cabinet, to name a government within a week. The resignation came days after Egypt’s Agriculture Minister Salah El Din Mahmoud Helal stepped down before being arrested on corruption charges.
This is while pubic employees are planning to launch massive demonstrations to protest against a controversial civil service law, which has recently been approved by Sisi. Egypt’s interior minister has vowed to quash the upcoming protests.
Egypt has been gripped by deadly unrest since the ouster of the country’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, in a July 2013 military coup orchestrated by Sisi, who was then the head of the armed forces.
Following the coup, thousands of Morsi’s supporters have been jailed, with many of them, including Morsi himself, receiving the death penalties in mass trials. — PressTV
