Egypt has delayed the swearing-in of a new cabinet to Tuesday due to consultations on ministerial candidates, the state TV reported Monday.

 

Protests continued in Egypt's capital Cairo and some other cities despite the expected government reshuffle. Some protesters said they wanted some other ministers to be sacked. Others even urged Prime Minister Essam Sharaf to resign.

 

"We won't leave the square, unless we feel a real change in the political atmosphere, not just shake-ups which seem like chess- playing," Ahmed Abdelrahim, one of the protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square, told Xinhua on Monday.

 

"In our opinions, Essam Sharaf has lost his legitimacy, so what ever he does, it doesn't matter," Abdelrahim added. "We need a real revolutionary government."

 

The swearing-in of the new cabinet was scheduled on Monday. More than half of the cabinet ministers were changed in an attempt to calm down protests.

 

"Why do you blame Sharaf while he is doing his best to choose a good team work in his reformed government, you should blame those who reject his offers and prefer not to stay in a two-month transitional cabinet," Ayman Kamal said on the Facebook page of Sharaf.

 

Ammar Ali Hassan, chief of the Middle East Center for the Political and Strategic Studies, said "the newly announced ministers were better than the previous ones, as they had no relation with the corrupt National Democratic Party which has been disbanded."

 

Sharaf should have resigned since the moment he felt he couldn' t meet the revolution demands, Hassan added.

 

"We are in a critical time, and the parliament elections will be held soon, followed by the presidential polls. So only some changes in the ministries are enough, there is no time for Sharaf to resign," he added.

 

Protests have been staged since July 8 in Cairo's Tahrir Square and squares of Alexandria and Suez with demonstrators demanding the faster and public trials of former president Hosni Mubarak, his aides, and the police officers accused of killing protesters, dismissal of officials working for the former regime from the current government, and compensation for the victims in the mass protests which toppled the former government on Feb. 11.

 

The Egyptian TV showed live the trial of former information minister Anas el-Fiqqi to appease protesters, who asked for more transparency in bringing the ex-president's allies to justice.

 

The Egyptian state television will broadcast live the trials of officials in the former government, Information Minister Osama Haikal was quoted by the official news agency MENA as saying on Monday.

 

Meanwhile, head of the Illicit Gain Authority Assem el-Gohari has ordered to ban the wife and sons of former prime minister Ahmed Nazif from traveling abroad who faces charges of profiteering and illegally accumulating wealth which doesn't match his income.

 

Mubarak is due to stand trial on Aug. 3. However, his lawyer said Sunday that Mubarak fell into full coma, which was denied later by hospital sources. Officials in Sharm el-Sheikh international hospital also said Mubarak's health was "stable".

 

Protesters urged to move Mubarak from the Red Sea resort Sharm el-Sheikh to Tora prison in Cairo, where both of his sons and many of his aids were detained.

 

The parliamentary and presidential elections are expected to be held in October or November.

 

As one step toward the elections, Egypt's ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces ordered on Monday to set up a high committee for elections. The committee, which will start to work on Sept. 18, will be headed by chief of the Cairo appeal court Abdel Ahmed Ibrahim.

 

Xinhua/ Editor: Lu Hui