President Mohamed Morsi has asked Hisham Kandil, interim Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, to form a new government. Kandil was a senior bureaucrat in the ministry until he was appointed minister in July last year after the fall of Hosni Mubarak. He obtained a doctorate in irrigation from the University of North Carolina in the United States in 1993, according to the water ministry’s Facebook page.
A spokesman for President Morsi described Kandil as an “independent patriot” who had not belonged to a party either before or after the popular uprising against Mubarak.
The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) has welcomed the appointment of Dr. Kandil as Prime Minister, and tasking him to form a new government for the next transitional phase in Egypt. FJP leaders have affirmed that Kandil is a highly-respected independent national figure.
In a press statement, the FJP has announced its commitment to close cooperation with the President of the Republic and the new Prime Minister he entrusted to form a new Cabinet on the basis of competence and expertise, to take Egypt across to safety, stability and prosperity.