Egypt's transitional 'road map' criticised by liberals and Islamists

Egypt's new military-led government has enlisted internationally recognised figures to be its public face and promised swift elections, but its transitional plan has been criticised by liberals and Islamists alike, who say it is muddled, authoritarian and rushed.

The so-called road map, in the form of a "constitutional declaration" by the military-appointed president, elicited immediate opposition from civilian leaders across the political spectrum.

The declaration made clear that the government drew its authority from the military leader who executed the takeover, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

"It is now officially a coup," Nathan Brown, a political scientist specialising in Egyptian law at George Washington University, wrote in assessing the text.

The new prime minister, Hazem el-Beblawi, is a prominent liberal economist who served as finance minister under an earlier interim government. A founding member of the Social Democratic Party, he has criticised former presidents Hosni Mubarak and Mohammed Mursi for failing to move fast enough to open up the economy, reform Egypt's bloated subsidy programmes and provide for the poor.

Diplomat Mohamed ElBaradei, who won a Nobel Prize for his work with the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, was the new government's first choice for prime minister. But his appointment was opposed by the ultraconservative Islamist al-Nour party, which had agreed to back Mursi's removal.

After ElBaradei's rejection - while he was on his way to his swearing-in, the Islamist party's leader said - the government cycled through two other candidates before persuading Beblawi to take the job. ElBaradei was appointed vice-president for foreign relations.