Gathered before the Cabinet offices on Kasr El-Aini Street, representatives of revolutionary movements announced to several thousand protesters, who had earlier marched there from nearby Tahrir, the names of 5 people they would like to form the core of the national salvation government that a million-strong protest in Tahrir and tens of thousands of protesters around the country insist should replace the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) in overseeing the transition to a democratic Egypt, Al Ahram reported.
Flatly rejecting SCAF's confirmation earlier in the day of its charging Kamel El-Ganzouri, former prime minister under Mubarak (1996-99) of forming the new government, the representatives of the youth and revolutionary movements named Mohamed El-Baradei as the head of the government of national salvation. Nobel Peace Prize winner and former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Baradei was slated as a candidate for the presidency. Recently, however, he expressed his willingness to serve as the head of a transition government, so long as that government was properly empowered, and not a mere lackey of SCAF.
The movements would also like to see two other erstwhile presidential hopefuls to take up the job of deputy prime ministers in a Baradei-headed cabinet. They are Hamdeen Sabahi, leader of the Nasserist Karama Party and former member of parliament, and Abdel-Moneim Aboul-Futtouh.
Two other members of the proposed Baradei cabinet were put forward by the movements as consensus candidates. They are Ahram economic journalist, Ahmed El-Naggar, and Judge Ashraf Baroudy.
The announcement came following the SCAF's decision to appoint Ganzouri as prime minister, a move which was viewed by protestors as extremely provocative, and following mass protests demanding that SCAF immediately hand over power to a civilian government.
Sources in the leadership of the youth movements indicated that a press conference is to be held in Tahrir Square at 8pm, with a number, or all of the political figures named in the demanded national salvation government attending.