The former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency is tipped to head Egypt’s interim government under Adly Mansour.

    MOHAMMED ELBARADEI, the 71-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, former head of the United Nations’ nuclear agency and Egyptian opposition figure, has just added a new line to his resume: He’s been appointed the interim vice president of Egypt.

    He took office on July 14, reinforcing the role in the new leadership of liberals who are strongly opposed to the deposed president’s Muslim Brotherhood.

    ElBaradei emerged as the top opposition leader in the campaign to oust Mohammed Morsi, who was toppled by the military on July 3 after four days of huge demonstrations.

    Military, political and diplomatic sources tipped him as favorite to head the interim government under Adly Mansour, a senior judge sworn in as Egypt’s acting president.

    “ElBaradei is our first choice,” a source close to the army said. “He’s an international figure, popular with young people and believes in a democracy that would include all political forces. He is also popular among some Islamist groups.”

    The source was referring to some members of the Nour party, an ultra-orthodox Salafi group that has been both an ally and a rival of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.

    Political sources said ElBaradei would also be acceptable to western powers that have studiously avoided calling Morsi’s removal a military coup.

    The news of ElBaradei’s appointment came after state media reported that the Nobel Prize-winning diplomat was summoned to the presidential palace for talks.

    How Morsi’s supporters, who supported the deposed Islamist president’s rule, react to ElBaradei, the former head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency, will be key for post-coup Egypt, where the military has also suspended the country’s constitution and dissolved parliament.

    Outside the Republican Guard headquarters, where four pro-Morsi protesters died last week in clashes with military forces loyal to the fledgling government, a funeral march was held on July 13.

    And pro-Morsi demonstrations continued around the Rabaa Al-Adawiya Mosque.

    The Egyptian Armed Forces, responding to “rumors and lies,” said on its Facebook page that there was no division among its ranks over its decision to back “the demands of the Egyptian people” over the government.

    “These rumors are completely and utterly untrue,” it said.

    In an interview with CNN, ElBaradei called Morsi’s ouster a “reset” of the 2011 popular revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak.

    “Either we risk a civil war or … take extra constitutional measures to ensure that we keep the country together,” he said, explaining the military’s conundrum. “This is a recall, and it is nothing novel.”

    The election that Morsi won was “fairly free,” ElBaradei acknowledged.

    “Then, unfortunately, the president messed up,” he told CNN. “When you end up with 20 million people in the street, of the state of mind that he needs to go and he needs to go now, it’s a sad state.”

    The diplomat said Morsi’s departure will serve as a reset so Egypt can start over in forming a constitution and putting together an inclusive government.

    ElBaradei, a veteran politician, has emerged as a key political player in Egypt’s post-Mubarak — and then the post-Morsi — era.

    As coordinator of the main alliance of liberal and left-wing parties and youth groups, the National Salvation Front, he had been in talks with General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi in the hours beforehand.

    In 2012 he had been set to stand as a liberal, secular candidate in the presidential elections, but withdrew his bid in January of that year citing concerns about the undemocratic way the military was governing Egypt.

    ElBaradei had wanted a new constitution to be drawn up from scratch before any elections took place. In April 2012, he took to Twitter calling the transition to democracy “bungled” and criticizing the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces’ approach to writing a new constitution.

    Although he stepped out of the presidential race, ElBaradei had set his sights on gaining power in 2016 after forming a new political party in April 2012.

    Born in Egypt in 1942, ElBaradei studied law at the University of Cairo. He began his career in the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1964, and worked in Egypt’s permanent mission to the United Nations both in New York and in Geneva.

    He holds a doctorate in international law from New York University’s law school.

    In 1980 he became a senior fellow in charge of the International Law Program at the United Nations’ Institute for Training and Research.

    ElBaradei is married to Aida Elkachef, a teacher, with whom he has two children.

    He joined the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1984 and worked his way up to director general 13 years later.

    ElBaradei agreed with the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush on a number of key nuclear-related issues, but he was not afraid to speak his mind.

    He particularly lambasted what he saw as double standards on the part of countries that have nuclear weapons but which seek to prevent others from procuring them.

    After taking over from Swedish diplomat Hans Blix in 1997, he employed diplomacy to deal with other nuclear rows in North Korea and Iran.

    He insisted progress could be made even in the most difficult situations.

    ElBaradei earned political credibility in the Middle East when he questioned the claims about weapons of mass destruction that were being used to justify the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

    His approach to Iran was perceived as not tough enough, by the Bush administration and its allies in the European Union.

    When he left the IAEA in November 2009, hundreds of his admirers defied warnings from Egyptian security forces three months later not to welcome him home at Cairo’s airport.

    For some Egyptians, ElBaradei’s appeal lay in the fact that he is a civilian — Egypt had been ruled by the military since the monarchy was overthrown more than 50 years ago — and that he is untainted by corruption allegations.

    But critics, back in 2012, suggested he was out of touch with the reality of Egypt and lacking in political experience.

    Although he played a prominent role in the Egyptian uprising that toppled Mubarak’s regime, his left-leaning politics have been eclipsed by the leading Islamist parties.

    In April 2012, ElBaradei launched a new political party that he said would be above ideology.

    The Constitution Party came too late to field a candidate in the 2012 presidential election, but ElBaradei said the aim was to take power in 2016, with Egyptians united behind democracy.

    He openly criticized the transition of power to the new government and a new president in June 2012.

    “You will have a president with imperial powers, he is going to be the legislator, he is going to be the executive, which is a total mess,” he said.

    “Theoretically he would have more power than Mubarak ... whoever is going to be elected is going to be a person with unchecked authority, and that is very frightening.”

    After Egyptians’ protests over Morsi’s leadership escalated and eventually led to his demise, ElBaradei said that he hoped a new plan to return the country to a democratically elected government was “the beginning of a new launch for the January 25 revolution [of 2011].”

    (SD-Agencies)