President Mohamed Mursi

Egypt's prime minister has drawn on bureaucrats and Islamists for the country's first Muslim Brotherhood-led administration, disappointing those who wanted a more inclusive government able to carry forward the revolution which toppled Hosni Mubarak.

Prime Minister-designate, Hisham Kandil's appointment of at least two Brotherhood politicians, including one as education minister, marked a major break with the past. But the cabinet's heavy reliance on civil servants also smacked of the Mubarak era, when government was run by technocrats, reports Reuters.

The new cabinet should help President Mohamed Mursi assert more authority in a state where the army still has a powerful say. The choice of defense minister was one of the few portfolios not announced on Wednesday.

"We are a long way from a revolutionary government, a long way from renewing the blood at the top of the Egyptian administration," said Mustapha Kamal Al-Sayyid, a professor of political science at Cairo University.

Incumbents who kept their jobs included Finance Minister Mumtaz al-Saeed and Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr Kamel, both of them career bureaucrats. The government - replacing an interim one which took office last year - is due to be sworn in on Thursday.

The new interior minister was named as Ahmed Gamal el-Din, a career policeman similar to those who held the job under Mubarak. He pledged to confront the lawlessness of which Egyptians have complained since Mubarak was deposed. "Egypt needs security and stability," he said, after meeting Kandil.

Mostafa Mussad, a member of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, was appointed education minister. Another Brotherhood member was appointed to run the housing ministry.

Facing a wave of criticism from non-Islamists, Kandil appeared to row back on a decision to appoint a hardline Salafi scholar as minister of religious endowments. Mohamed Ibrahim, the scholar, said this week he had been offered the job.