Nobel laureate ElBaradei warns Egypt 'on brink of creating new emperor'

Cairo - Egyptian reformist leader Mohamed ElBaradei has warned that Cairo is currently suffering under worse conditions than the era of ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak and is on the brink of creating a 'new emperor'.

ElBaradei, a Nobel laureate and former head of the UN nuclear watchdog, gave a withering assessment of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, which dominated the now defunct new parliamentary assembly.

He said political Islamists had tried to take 'the whole cake' for themselves following the overthrow of Mubarak last February, and as a result Egypt's ruling generals had been able to engineer an assault on the revolution.

"We are in a total mess, a confused process that - assuming good intentions - has led us nowhere except the place we were at 18 months ago, but under even more adverse conditions," The Guardian quoted ElBaradei, as saying

"We are going to elect a president in the next couple of days without a constitution and without a parliament. He will be a new emperor, holding both legislative and executive authority and with the right to enact laws and even amend the constitution as he sees fit," he added.

According to the paper, ElBaradei also said that Ahmed Shafiq, a former Mubarak prime minister, as president of a 'new Egypt' "is an oxymoron".

"In this scenario the new president would be backed by Scaf and political authority in the country will continue to be held by Scaf, but I think it most likely that he is the one that is going to win," he added.

ElBaradei withdrew from the presidential race this year arguing that a fair vote could not be held while the country remained in the grip of a military junta.

According to the paper, at times ElBaradei has been viewed as an opposition figurehead who occupied the rare position of being able to command respect from revolutionaries, secular liberals and political Islamists.