Egypt's president-elect Mohammed Mursi has pushed ahead with selecting a government.
It comes after a court delivered a blow to the ruling military, suspending its powers to arrest civilians.
Egypt's first civilian president, and its first elected leader since an uprising ousted president Hosni Mubarak early last year, still has to contend with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.
The SCAF will retain broad powers even after it formally transfers control to Mr Mursi at the end of June.
The military took control after Mr Mubarak resigned in February 2011.
On Monday, the president-elect met Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the head of SCAF and the man to whom Mr Mubarak handed power.
The new president has to contend with the fact that the country's top court earlier this month declared the Islamist-dominated parliament to be null.
The military subsequently assumed legislative powers and thus will dominate a powerful national security council headed by Mr Mursi.
The military also reserves the right to appoint a new constituent assembly should the one elected by parliament be disbanded by a court decision expected on 1 September.
However, the Muslim Brotherhood has insisted that only parliament can appoint the assembly.
Mr Mursi was the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, even though he resigned from the movement in order to take the top job, pledging to represent all Egyptians.
"All these details are on the table for discussion," said a senior aide to the president-elect yesterday. "Nothing has been settled yet, and no decision has been taken."
The aide said Mr Mursi was holding talks to appoint an "independent national figure" as his premier. "Most of the cabinet will be technocrats," he added.
Today, Egyptian media widely quoted a Mursi aide as saying that the president-elect was "working on reaching some compromises on various issues so that all the parties are able to work together."
The official Al-Ahram newspaper reported yesterday that Mr Mursi was considering Nobel Laureate Mohamed ElBaradei or former finance minister Hazem Beblawi for the post of prime minister.
Mr Beblawi told AFP that he was abroad and had not yet been contacted.
Meanwhile, a court ruling yesterday reduced the power of the military in a move welcomed by human rights groups.
Egypt's administrative court suspended a justice ministry decision that had empowered the military to arrest civilians, responding to an appeal by 17 rights groups against the controversial 13 June decree.
The head of military justice Adel al-Mursi had said earlier this month that the decree was necessary after the state of emergency expired on 31 May.
