Profile: Mohamed El Baradei
Ex-IAEA chief and Nobel laureate named Egypt's interim deputy president after army ousted Morsi.
Mohamed ElBaradei, a former head of the UN nuclear watchdog and a Nobel peace laureate has said that deposed President Mohamed Morsi failed in leading Egypt toward a proper democratic path.
In an interview with the New York Times in early July, he defended the ouster of Morsi.
"We did not have a recall process," ElBaradei said. "People ask for the recall process with their feet in Tahrir Square. In my judgment, we could not have waited even one more week.”
Two years ago he was tasked by several opposition movements including the Muslim Brotherhood to negotiate with the Hosni Mubarak government. But now he stands opposed to Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, saying Morsi has "failed" in leading the nation towards a proper democratic path after the 2011 uprising.
On June 29, the 71-year-old ElBaradei released a video message saying, "The current revolution has erupted so that each one of us lives as human and be treated like human".
Mediator
ElBaradei already enjoys the strong backing of the June 30 Front, an amalgam of several groups opposing Morsi who believe ElBaradei is "the voice of their demands".
On July 2, the Front - created by the Tamarod ("Rebel") campaign for the purpose of organising mass protests - tasked ElBaradei to speak with the Brotherhood on its behalf. The Front’s statement said he was chosen to avoid any fragmentation among the opposition.
ElBaradei left Egypt 30 years ago to work for the United Nations. He returned to Cairo in 2010 after resigning from the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA), receiving an exuberant welcome from supporters who hoped he would stir up Egyptian politics by running for president. Days after retiring from the IAEA, ElBaradei said a decision on entering the 2011 presidential race would depend on guarantees of a fair election.
ElBaradei is widely respected in Egypt and has received the country's highest honour, the Nile Shas, in 2006.
He was born on June 17, 1942, in Cairo, where his attorney father headed the bar association, a position that sometimes put him at odds with then president Gamal Abdel Nasser. Following in his father's footsteps, ElBaradei earned his law degree at the University of Cairo in 1962.
"My father taught me that you have to stand by your principles. He was president of the bar association and was preaching civil liberties and human rights during some of the most repressive years of the Nasser era. I think that's a lesson I remember from him... That you stand up for what you believe in," ElBaradei has said.
Two years after obtaining his law degree, ElBaradei joined the diplomatic service, and was assigned to the Egyptian missions to Geneva and New York, where he earned a doctorate in international law and later taught. He has written that his New York years were among the most formative, helping him to broaden his world view.
Camp David negotiator
As special assistant to the Egyptian foreign minister, ElBaradei served on the negotiating team at the historic Camp David peace talks that led to Egypt's peace treaty and diplomatic relations with Israel.
He began his UN career in 1980, and was sent to Iraq in the wake of the 1991 Gulf war to dismantle Saddam's nuclear programme.
In 1997, he was chosen as head of the IAEA, a role that made him an international household name and led to confrontations with Washington, first over Iraq and later over Iran. When the US claimed that Iraq was buying uranium in Africa, ElBaradei dismissed the evidence before the UN Security Council as fake.
Though he angered Washington by challenging claims that Saddam Hussein was hiding a secret nuclear programme, he was proved right when no nuclear weapons were found after the 2003 US invasion.
In 2005, ElBaradei and the IAEA were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts "to prevent nuclear energy for being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way".
He is married to Aida Elkachef, a kindergarten teacher, and has two children, Laila and Mostafa.
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Profile: Egypt's interim leader Adly Mansour
Former head of Supreme Constitutional Court was sworn in as Egypt's interim president one day after Morsi's ouster.
He takes the helm of a nation deeply divided over the army's ouster of its first freely elected president Mohamed Morsi following days of deadly clashes between his Islamist supporters and their increasingly numerous opponents.
He was named by Morsi himself to Egypt's top judicial post, which, following the army's suspension of the constitution, catapulted him into political power.
The 67-year-old father of three, who won a scholarship to France's Ecole Nationale de l'Administration, was a long-serving judge under former President Hosni Mubarak.
But he served in the state-sponsored religious courts which deliver fatwas, or edicts, on observance, as well as in the civil and criminal courts.
Mansour helped draft the supervision law for the presidential elections that brought Morsi to power in 2012, which included setting a legal timeframe for electoral campaigning.
He was deputy head of the Supreme Constitutional Court from 1992. Unlike the principal leaders of the opposition - among them Nobel peace laureate Mohamed El Baradei and former Arab League chief Amr Mussa.
The judge could probably have walked through one of the huge opposition protests that swept the country on Sunday prompting the military's dramatic intervention without being recognised.
His photograph was never among those brandished by the million of demonstrators mobilised by the grassroots opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood's grip on power during Morsi's tumultuous 12 months in power.
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Profile: General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi
Egypt's army chief could play an important role when the military ultimatum to rival political sides expires.
Although the army stressed the following day that its statement was not a de facto coup, General Sisi - who was appointed to this position by Morsi - will play an important role during this process as the 48-hour deadline comes to an end.
Sisi replaced Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who was ordered to step down by Morsi last August, as the general commander of the army and chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces as well as the defence minister.
At the time, there was speculation of a possible alliance between the military and the new Islamist leaders, to which the army had previously been hostile.
Known to be religious, Sisi was accused of being too close to the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood group, of which Morsi was a member during the Mubarak era. But like many Egyptian officers, Sisi was also a fervent admirer of Egypt's nationalist president Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Born in Cairo in November 1954, Sisi graduated from an Egyptian military academy in 1977 with a diploma in military sciences. He continued to train in the UK Joint Services Command and Staff College in 1992, and received a master’s degree at the US Army War College in Pennsylvania in 2006.
Sisi, who does not have combat experience, served as a military attache in Saudi Arabia during Mubarak’s regime. He then became chief of staff to the commander of the northern military zone. When the military council took power after the revolution, he was appointed as the head of military intelligence in February 2011
Sisi has come under criticism for defending “virginity tests” applied to female protesters during the revolution, which he said were conducted to “protect girls from rape as well as the army from possible allegations”. However, he later pledged to ban the practice of virginity tests.
Even if he is part of an Islamist-dominated government, General Sisi, who enjoyed a successful career in the top brass before taking up the prestigious post of head of military intelligence, seemed to be a military insider.
He has said in the past he is keen on "increasing the efficiency of the armed forces", seen to be outdated and currently struggling to restore order in the troubled Sinai Peninsula area.
Politicians and journalists who have met Sisi believe his main preoccupation is rebuilding the army's reputation, tarnished by its time in control of the country with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.
The army chief is also known for his close relationship with US military, which provides it with considerable training and equipment.
Since the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement in 1979, Washington has been a major backer of Egypt's army, currently providing support to the tune of $1.3bn every year.
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Profile: Mohamed Morsi
Egyptian leader rose through Muslim Brotherhood's ranks to become country's first democratically elected president.
He was born in 1951 in the Al-Sharqiya governorate in northern Egypt, and raised in the village of El-Adwa in the Nile Delta.
Morsi, the son of a farmer, was educated at Cairo University, earning a bachelor’s and master’s degree in engineering. From 1975-76, Morsi served in the Egyptian military, in the chemical warfare department.
In 1979 Morsi joined the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group often cracked down on by the Egyptian government, while he was studying in the United States. His education took him to Los Angeles, where he earned a doctorate at the University of Southern California in 1982, on a scholarship. He stayed in academia, working as an assistant professor at California State University, Northridge, until 1985.
He then left the US with his wife and children to head the engineering department at Egypt’s Zagazig University, near his hometown. He now has five children, two of whom are US citizens.
Morsi rose within the Brotherhood ranks, becoming a member of its powerful Guidance Bureau in 1995. He was elected to parliament in 2000 as an independent candidate, since the Brotherhood was officially banned from running for office, and served as the group’s spokesperson within parliament.
In 2006, Morsi was jailed for seven months for taking part in a demonstration supporting judges who were demanding judicial independence. He was also arrested and detained briefly during the 2011 uprising that toppled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
After Mubarak fell, the Muslim Brotherhood founded the Freedom and Justice Party as its political wing. Subsequent elections for a constitutional assembly and parliament were dominated by the well-organised Freedom and Justice Party.
The party initially chose Khairat el-Shater to run as its candidate in presidential elections, but he was disqualified by a technicality. Morsi was chosen as a replacement, leading some to refer to him as the Brotherhood’s "spare tire" candidate.
In presidential elections held in May 2012, Morsi won almost 25 percent of the vote in the presidential election’s first round - more than any other candidate. Morsi, assuring Egyptian voters that he would not govern as a theocrat, narrowly beat Ahmed Shafiq - the prime minister under Hosni Mubarak - in a runoff round the following month, with almost 52 percent of the vote, and took office on June 30.
The triumph of Morsi, an Islamist and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, would have been unthinkable just two years before.
First civilian president
As president, Morsi moved to consolidate his power by diminishing that of Egypt’s powerful armed forces. Since 1952, every Egyptian leader until 2012 had been a member of the military. In August 2012, Morsi dismissed Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the leader of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, who had ruled Egypt after Mubarak was overthrown - though appointed him as a presidential advisor.
In November, Morsi issued a controversial decree putting presidential decisions above judicial review. Under pressure, he then annulled the decree the following month.
Upon taking office, Morsi inherited a sclerotic economy, unrest in the Sinai Peninsula, and frequent mass demonstrations, but the problems have continued. High unemployment and a depreciating currency have angered many Egyptians, and his critics - from seculars and liberals to supporters of the Mubarak regime - say he has failed to keep his promise that he would govern as a moderate.
Protests, sometimes turning violent, occurred in December and January, and almost 60 people were killed in January 2013 on the anniversary of Mubarak’s ousting. Meanwhile, the tourism industry, the mainstay of the Egyptian economy, has suffered amid the turbulence.
Religious minorities such as Coptic Christians have been distrustful of Morsi and the Islamist-dominated legislature, and have blamed the Islamist-led government from failing to protect them from sectarian violence.
Discontent with Morsi crystallised into mass protests on June 30, organised by the Tamarod (or "rebellion") campaign which demands the president step down. Millions took part in the demonstrations, and in response the military delivered Morsi an ultimatum to restore stability within 48 hours. The deadline expired at 14:30 GMT on July 3.
Foreign policies
Morsi has strongly condemned Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria, calling for military intervention on behalf of rebel groups fighting in the country’s civil war. In June 2013 he announced that Egypt would sever ties with the Assad regime.
In August 2012, Morsi travelled to Tehran for a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, becoming the first Egyptian leader to travel to Iran since its 1979 revolution. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reciprocated by meeting with Morsi in Cairo in February 2013.
Morsi has said he does not support abandoning Egypt’s peace treaty with neighbouring Israel, but that it will be "reviewed". The Egyptian president won praise for helping to negotiate a ceasefire after Israel attacked the Gaza Strip in November 2012.
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