Profile: Interim Egyptian President Adly Mansour
Adly Mahmud
Mansour, the
head of Egypt's
Supreme
Constitutional
Court, has
become the
country's
interim leader
following the
removal by the
military of
Islamist
President
Mohammed
Morsi.
The armed forces suspended the
constitution on 3 July and the
commander-in-chief of the armed forces,
Gen Abd-al-Fattah al-Sisi, announced
that Mr Mansour take on presidential
duties until fresh elections are called.
Having served as deputy head of the
constitutional court since 1992, Mr
Mansour was appointed as its president
in May 2013 and took up his post on 1
July.
As he took the oath as interim leader, he
praised the massive street
demonstrations that had led to Mr
Morsi's removal.
"The most glorious thing about 30 June
is that it brought together everyone
without discrimination or division,'' he
said.
The revolution, he said, must go on so
that "we stop producing tyrants".
Mystery man
Egypt's Masrawi website describes Mr
Mansour as a "mysterious" man with a
low media profile.
Born in Cairo in 1945, he received a
licence to practise law from the Cairo
University in 1967 and joined the state
council in 1970, rising in the ranks until
he was appointed deputy president of
the constitutional court in 1992.
He headed the constitutional hearings in
2012 that scrapped the "political
isolation" law, which prohibited
members of the old regime from
contesting elections.
It is this law that
allowed
Mubarak-era
prime minister
Ahmad Shafiq to
run as a
candidate in the
last presidential
elections.
Mr Mansour's
name seems to
have first
emerged as a
possible leader of
Egypt on 30 June.
On the first day of the current wave of
protests on 30 June, a group named "Al-
Sha'ab Yureed" (The People Demand)
distributed a petition among fellow
protesters calling for the formation of a
presidential council to run the country,
listing his name as a possible member.
The Masrawi website notes that this is a
time of "rapid change" for Mr Mansour,
a man who has spent the last 10 years
"playing the role of second-in-
command" in the court.
Before his appointment, Twitter users
embraced the possibility of Mr Mansour
becoming interim president.
Speaking to Al-Ahram Al-Shabab, Judge
Hamid al-Jamal described Mr Mansour as
"a quiet, calm man who makes balanced
decisions and who will respect the will of
the Egyptian people".
