If there's one African country that continues to surprise the world then it is Egypt. Shortly after President Mohamed Morsi and his Prime Minister Hisham Qandil picked a new cabinet, the talk in continental circles was that Morsi had decided to work with the military rulers, at least for the present, because they held all the reins of power, and because he needed a stable country.

The military, through the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), had ruled Egypt since February 2011, when Hosni Mubarak was ousted in a popular revolution. For Morsi and Qandil, the SCAF top officials, such as Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, could not be shown the door because a new cabinet had to be formed.

The military officials, from Mubarak's tenure, and those appointed by SCAF to serve the caretaker government, were retained in the influential portfolios of defense, foreign affairs, and finance - the engine of any administration. For all intents and purposes, these ministries hold the instruments of power.

Field Marshal Tantawi had taken all the powers of the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces; he'd also suspended Parliament and reserved all the powers to decide what team would write a new Constitution for Egypt. He did this, just days before Morsi was sworn in.

When Morsi took over, he and Tantawi clashed, because Morsi recalled Parliament while Tantawi thought that the recall was illegal.

Morsi remained silent when his PM Qandil appointed Tantawi as the minister of defense. Career diplomat Mohamed Kamal Ali Amr was picked as foreign minister. Amr, like Qandil, was picked by the military in the interim government and Momtaz Saed Abu El-Nour was retained as the finance minister.

Outside in the streets people wondered what Morsi was up to by having people who served Mubarak's regime within his ruling circle.

Extrapolating it further, it is difficult not to associate everyone appointed by the military as a Mubarak disciple. The simplicity of this thinking is that the leaders at SCAF were appointed by Mubarak. With the fall of Mubarak, they were unlikely to select "outsiders" to work in government, so they looked within their circles for allies.

The other school of thought would be that Qandil, a SCAF-appointee as the minister of irrigation, was just returning a favor to his godfathers in the military.

"Political instability will continue to weigh heavily on the economy, which has been crippled by a lack of new capital inflows, disruptions to manufacturing and a decline in tourism," noted the Economic Intelligence Unit.

Egyptians wanted new faces at the top and in the cabinet so that stability could return to their country.

The power play was interrupted abruptly on August 5 after unknown militants killed 16 Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai on Egypt's border with Israel. The attack angered Morsi and he quickly fired his intelligence chief for the lapse in national security.

He sent thousands of troops, and military hardware to tackle the bandits, giving Egyptians a sense of a stable government. And then he dropped a bombshell and fired Tantawi, Armed Forces Chief of Staff Sami Anan, Air Force Chief Rezza Abd al-Megid, Navy Commander Mahab Muhamed Mamish, and Air Defense Chief Abd Al-Aziz Muhamed Seif.

The move shocked the world and was seen as a political earthquake for Egypt. Tantawi's replacement is Field Marshall Abd al-Fatah Sissi, while General Sidki Sobhi is the new chief of staff. Thousands of Egyptians celebrated the announcements in Cairo's Tahrir Square. Egypt has little culture of accountability and people are not used to seeing officials resign, let alone be dismissed.

It is difficult not to link the dismissal of the military hardmen to the Sinai offensive arising out of the security lapse. But there are whispers that Morsi might just have pounced on the opportunity to rid the country of Mubarak's boys.

Others think Morsi and his allies in the Muslim Brotherhood, with a majority in Parliament, just want a tight stranglehold on all powerful posts. Morsi has promised to spread the load of leadership and make his team more inclusive, which will lead to greater political efficiency.

This is part of the strategy to get investors back into the country, work on the economy, ensure that people are reconciled, revamp tourism, enhance security, and ensure that democracy prevails. Qandil knows this, and that's perhaps the reason why he held sectoral meetings with those in charge of these areas to spell out the urgency of reforms, and ensuring that people get jobs.

Morsi said of the military sackings, "I did not mean to send a negative message about anyone [firing military leaders], but my aim was the benefit of this nation and its people."

He needs to usher in a new era of government and live up to the promise of the revolution. The world watches to see if this is possible, as well as how his affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood, hems in geopolitically, with Israel and Palestine.