Egypt's new president Mohammed Mursi took steps to assert his power, and to curb that of the army, as he sacked Field Marshall Tantawi, the head of the military who ran the country after the revolution last year.

Ahmed Al-Darrad, a senior figure in the president's Freedom and Justice Party, told Evan Davis on BBC Radio Four's Today programme these were the "first serious real steps of getting rid of the military rule of Egypt".

He predicted the ousted military leaders would "retire peacefully" and not react foolishly, and claimed people were "regaining control of their political life through democratic elections".

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