Egypt swore in its new interim Cabinet yesterday, naming mainly liberals and technocrats to lead a transition to civilian rule, but the deaths of seven people in overnight violence showed the country is still far from stable.

In an ornate hall in the presidential palace, 33 Cabinet ministers took turns being sworn in by Adli Mansour, a burly judge who was installed as interim President by the military when it toppled Islamist Mohamed Morsi on July 3.

The armed forces chief who removed Morsi, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, was given the post of first deputy to interim prime minister Hazem el-Beblawi, a 76-year-old liberal economist tasked with implementing a “road map” to restore full civilian rule and repair a crumbling economy.

But Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood movement, which has said it would have nothing to do with politics until he was reinstated, dismissed the interim government as illegitimate.

“It’s an illegitimate government, an illegitimate prime minister, an illegitimate Cabinet. We don’t recognise anyone in it. We don’t even recognise their authority as representatives of the government,” spokesman Gehad El-Haddad told Reuters.

The swearing-in ceremony was held after battles between Morsi’s supporters and security forces that ran into the early hours of the morning, the worst violence in a week.

Two people were killed at a bridge across the Nile in central Cairo, and another five were killed in the district of Giza, said the head of emergency services, Mohamed Sultan. More than 260 people were wounded and more than 400 arrested.

Not one of the new ministers is from either Morsi’s Brotherhood or Nour, the other main Islamist group, which together have won all five elections held in the two and a half years since autocrat Hosni Mubarak was toppled.

A spokesman for the interim President said the Islamists had been offered Cabinet posts and would participate in the transition. The Brotherhood called the remarks lies, and said it would never yield its demand for Morsi’s return.

Crisis in the Arab world’s most populous state, which straddles the Suez Canal and has a strategic peace treaty with Israel, raises alarm for its allies in the region and the West.

Morsi’s removal has bitterly divided Egypt, with thousands of his supporters maintaining a vigil in a Cairo square to demand his return, swelling to tens of thousands for mass demonstrations every few days.

Morsi is being held incommunicado at an undisclosed location. He has not been charged with any crime but the authorities say they are investigating him over complaints of inciting violence, spying and wrecking the economy.

A week of relative calm had suggested peace might be returning, but that was shattered by the street battles into the early hours of yesterday morning, the bloodiest since more than 50 Morsi supporters were shot dead outside a barracks a week ago.

“We were crouched on the ground, we were praying. Suddenly there was shouting. We looked up and the police were on the bridge firing tear gas down on us,” said pro-Morsi protester Adel Asman, 42, who was coughing, spitting and pouring Pepsi on his eyes to ease the effect of tear gas.

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