Kamal Ganzouri has agreed to become Egypt’s prime minister and will form a new government, an Egyptian army spokesman said Thursday.

This development — announced by Lt. Col. Amr Imam — comes days after former Prime Minister Essam Sharaf and his government quit en masse, and days before Monday’s parliamentary elections that Egypt’s military rulers vowed Thursday would go on despite ongoing unrest.

Ganzouri, who was Egypt’s prime minister between 1996 and 1999 under President Hosni Mubarak, could not be reached to confirm his appointment.

He met Thursday with Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, field marshal of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and Egypt’s dominant force since Mubarak’s ouster in February, according to the state-run MENA news agency.

Ganzouri would remain prime minister until at least Jan. 10, when results of the parliamentary elections are finalized, said Aly Hassan, a judicial consultant. After that, Parliament would have to back Ganzouri for him to remain in the position.

The Alliance of the Revolutionaries of Egypt had proposed Mohamed ElBaradei, a 2005 Nobel Peace Prize winner and a frontrunner for the presidency of Egypt, to take over as prime minister, said coalition member Musad Ibrahim. He criticized the choice of Ganzouri, noting he is 81 years old and claiming “all his projects [in government] were failures.”

“The security council wants someone they can control, and Ganzouri is their man,” Ibrahim said.

Protesters remained massed in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Thursday, angry at the political transition process and the military rulers.

The situation there appeared relatively calm after soldiers erected barbed wire barricades to separate protesters from police.

It was a different story in the northern port city of Alexandria, where MENA — citing the security directorate — reported Thursday night clashes had “re-erupted.”

Huda Hamdy, an activist in Alexandria, told CNN that Molotov cocktails were met with rubber bullets and tear gas.

Earlier in the day, Egypt’s military leaders refused to accede to demonstrators’ demands that the members of the ruling military council step aside. Gen. Mamdouh Shaheen said that doing so, absent a referendum, would be “treason.”

He also vowed that there would be no change in the elections plan.

“The elections will be on time,” Shaheen told reporters in Cairo.

Gen. Mukhtar el-Mallah, a member of Egypt’s Supreme Council, said the military “has completed its administrative and security plan” with Interior Ministry officials to ensure that the elections are carried out safely.

“We are prepared to conduct the elections under any circumstances,” added Judge Abdel Moez Ibrahim, head of the elections committee, noting that Egyptians living abroad started voting Wednesday.

The officials’ comments came after the Ahram Online website, part of the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper group, reported the country’s major political parties were considering asking the Supreme Council to postpone the first round of parliamentary elections for two weeks.

The website attributed the information to unnamed sources close to the discussions. On Tuesday, the liberal Wafd Party floated a similar suggestion in a public statement, the website said.

While not budging on the elections timetable, Egypt’s military leaders did apologize Thursday for the recent deaths of protesters, vowing to prosecute offenders and pay the medical bills of the wounded.

“The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces presents its regrets and deep apologies for the deaths of martyrs among Egypt’s loyal sons during the recent events in Tahrir Square,” said the message, which was posted on the council’s Facebook page. “The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces confirms that it is making every sincere effort to prevent such events from happening again.”

Since Saturday, protesters have clashed with police near the Cairo square, the epicenter of the movement that led to Mubarak’s ouster as president nine months ago. Among other demands, they have called for the interim military rulers step down.

Egypt’s grand mufti, the country’s highest religious official, called Wednesday for police to put down their weapons and “never aim” firearms at the Egyptian people. In an audio message aired by Egyptian state TV, he urged a “peaceful protest for Egypt’s sake.”

By Wednesday, the death toll from the clashes stood at 38, including 33 in Cairo. Another 3,250 have been wounded, said Dr. Hisham Shiha of Egypt’s Health Ministry.

Dalia Ziada, regional director for the American Islamic Congress, on Thursday accused military leaders of playing games with the political process and security situation to protect their interests.

Speaking to CNN from Cairo, she had even harsher words for security forces, claiming that “police brutality is … getting worse.”

“Now they are coming back to take revenge, saying we are still here, we can kill you,” Ziada said.

Prominent journalist Mona Eltahawy, who has dual American and Egyptian citizenship, was among the countless number arrested. After being freed after 12 hours in detention, she claimed that security forces acted “like a bunch of wild beasts finding their prey” when they allegedly beat and sexually assaulted her.

She told CNN that her left arm and right hand were broken by riot police who “beat the heck out of me with their sticks” as she was taking pictures of a confrontation between protesters and security forces.

Eltahawy claimed her breasts and genital area were groped by security forces who repeatedly called her a “whore.”

“I was fair game,” she said. “Anybody I passed who wanted to grope me would grope me.”

Upon her release, Eltahawy said that the military apologized for the way the police had treated her.

Col. Islam Jaffar, head of the army’s morals department in central Cairo, said he saw Eltahawy during her detention and that she had no Egyptian press pass that would have identified her as a reporter. “What did she expect?” he asked. “She could be a spy for all we know. When she told me she was sexually assaulted, I encouraged her to take the appropriate legal action.”

Interior Ministry spokesman Alaa Mahmoud said, “Our policemen do not treat journalists or females in that manner. If her claims about sexual harassment took place, then it may have been an isolated incident.”

The U.S. State Department called Eltahawy’s arrest “very concerning” and said that embassy officials were trying to get information from Egyptian authorities.

Meanwhile, a friend of three American college students who were arrested on suspicion of tossing Molotov cocktails in protests said he had spoken to them and they were expecting to be released within a few days.

“We are just so blessed and so grateful right now,” said Joy Sweeney, the mother of student Derrik Sweeney, one of the detained students. “I can’t wait to give him a big hug.”

It was not clear what was delaying their immediate release. “We handed the release order to the police and it’s in their hands now,” said Adel Saeed, the general prosecutor’s spokesman.

An Egyptian-American filmmaker, Jehane Noujaim, is also in custody after being detained Wednesday in Cairo. David Lynfield, a spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, said Thursday that U.S. diplomats are “in touch” with Egyptian authorities about her case.

CNN’s Ian Lee, Ben Wedeman and Mohamed Fadel Fahmy contributed to this report.