Under the constitutional declaration by Adly Mansour late last night, he would create two appointed committees to work out amendments to the Islamist-drafted constitution passed under ousted President Mohammed Morsi.
A referendum on the new document would be held within four months.
Elections for a new parliament would be held within two months after that, around mid-February. Once the new parliament convenes, it would have a week to set new presidential elections.
The declaration came after clashes with security forces early yesterday left more than 50 Morsi supporters dead. Both sides exchanged blame over who sparked the bloodshed.
It was one of the deadliest single episodes of violence in more than two years of turmoil. The toppled leader’s Muslim Brotherhood called for an uprising, accusing troops of gunning down protesters, while the military blamed armed Islamists for provoking its forces.
The early morning carnage at a sit-in by Islamists outside the Republican Guard headquarters, where Mr Morsi was first held last week, further entrenched the battle lines between his supporters and his opponents. The uproar weakened the political coalition that backed the military’s removal of the country’s first freely elected leader.
Egypt’s top Muslim cleric, the sheik of Al-Azhar, warned of civil war and took the unusual step of announcing he would seclude himself in his home until the two sides “stop the bloodshed”.
The sole Islamist faction that backed Mr Morsi’s removal, the ultraconservative Al-Nour Party, suspended its participation in talks on forming a new leadership for the country.
The group is now torn by pressure from many in its base, furious over what they saw as a “massacre” against Islamists.
Both the military and the Brotherhood appeared determined not to back down in the confrontation.
The Brotherhood accuses the military of carrying out a coup against democracy, while their opponents say Mr Morsi squandered his 2012 election victory and took the country into a Brotherhood monopoly on power.
The Freedom and Justice party, the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, called on Egyptians to rise up against the army, which it accused of turning Egypt into “a new Syria”.
Immediately, both sides presented their versions of what happened at the protest site, where around 1,000 Morsi supporters had been camped out for days in the streets around a Mosque near the Republican Guard Headquarters. After the violence began around dawn, the two sides battled it out for around three hours.
Protesters and the Brotherhood said it began when troops descended on them and opened fire unprovoked as they finished dawn prayers.
Spokesmen for the military and police, however, gave a nationally televised news conference saying gunmen among the protesters sparked the battle.
Footage of the clashes provided by the military, aired on Egyptian TV stations, showed protesters on rooftops hurling projectiles at troops below, including fire bombs and toilet seats.
It also showed some armed protesters firing at close range at the troops, but it showed no footage of what the military did. It was also not clear at what time in the fighting the videos were shot.
At least 51 protesters were killed and 435 wounded, most from live ammunition and birdshot, emergency services chief Mohammed Sultan said, according to the state news agency.
Mr Mansour ordered a judicial inquiry into the killings. Significantly, the statement from his office echoed the military’s version of events, saying the killings followed an attempt to storm the Republican Guard’s headquarters.
The escalating chaos could further complicate Egypt’s relations with Washington and other Western allies, which had supported Mr Morsi as the country’s first freely elected leader and now are reassessing policies toward the military-backed group that forced him out.
Source: Irish Examiner
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