Islamists, Liberals Blast Egypt Transition Plan as Reports Say Morsi in 'Safe Place'

Opponents and supporters of ousted president Mohammed Morsi blasted a new charter granting Egypt's interim president extensive powers, as talks for a new cabinet were to begin Wednesday.

The military's ouster a week ago of Morsi, after massive protests calling for his resignation, pushed the divided country into a vortex of violence that has already claimed dozens of lives.

Foreign ministry spokesman Badr Abdelatty told reporters on Wednesday that Morsi is currently being held in a "safe place, for his safety."

He added: "He is not charged with anything up till now."

President Adly Mansour has set a timetable for elections by early next year, and appointed Hazem al-Beblawi as prime minister and Nobel peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei as vice president responsible for foreign affairs.

Cracks within the coalition that lobbied for Morsi's ouster, and defiant protests by his loyalists, have returned the country to an uncertain transition to democracy ahead of the new elections.

The National Salvation Front (NSF), the main coalition that had called for Morsi's overthrow, has denounced Mansour's decree and demanded amendments.

The Muslim Brotherhood had already rejected Mansour's temporary charter as a decree enforced by "putchists.”

Beblawi, a former finance minister and economist, was on Wednesday to begin talks on forming his cabinet, the official MENA news agency said.

He would offer the Muslim Brotherhood posts in the new government, the agency quoted a presidential aide as saying.

But the Muslim Brotherhood spurned the offer."We do not deal with putchists. We reject all that comes from this coup," spokesman Tareq al-Morsi told Agence France Presse.

The continued standoff with Morsi's loyalists, who demand the reinstatement of Egypt's first democratically elected leader, has exacerbated fears of further bloodshed after his overthrow.

Mansour must also deal with the frayed coalition that helped topple Morsi.

An official with one of the parties in the NSF told AFP that Mansour's 33-article declaration foresees new "legislative, executive and judicial powers" for the interim president.

"You would look like a hypocrite now. It makes it look as if you are not against dictatorship, just against a dictatorship that is not from your group," he said.

The official requested anonymity as his party prepared its own statement, amid apparent fissures in the loose coalition, which was led by ElBaradei until Morsi's ouster.

Many within the coalition are wary of repeating the mistakes of the last military led transition, between Hosni Mubarak's ouster in 2011 and Morsi's election in June 2012.

The Muslim Brotherhood has called for an "uprising" to restore Morsi.

On the opposing end, Tamarod, the movement that spearheaded the grassroots campaign against Morsi, complained that it had not been consulted on the transition plan announced by Mansour and would also make proposals for changes to the blueprint.

But the army warned it would brook no disruption to what it acknowledged would be a "difficult" transition.

The blueprint unveiled by Mansour is intended to replace the controversial Islamist-drafted constitution, suspended on Morsi's ouster, and put the new charter to referendum.

Parliamentary elections will then by early 2014 and Mansour will announce a date for a presidential election once the new parliament has convened.