Egypt Swears In Cabinet Following Demonstrators' Demands
Prime Minister Essam Sharaf
Khaled Desouki/AFP/Getty Images
Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf.
Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf. Photographer: Khaled Desouki/AFP/Getty Images
Egypt swore in a new Cabinet following protesters’ demands that the government be purged of officials appointed under former President Hosni Mubarak.
The foreign, justice, interior and oil ministers were changed. State television aired footage of the ceremony showing the prime minister and his Cabinet taking the oath before Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, who heads the ruling military council.
Nabil El-Arabi, a 75-year-old former judge at the International Court of Justice, was named foreign minister. Mohammed Abdullah Ghorab will head the Oil Ministry. Mohamed Abdel Aziz El-Gendy was appointed justice minister and Mansour El-Essawy became interior minister. Finance Minister Samir Radwan and the minister for military production, Sayed Mashaal, are among those who retained their positions in the new Cabinet.
The changes are the latest efforts by the country’s ruling military council to placate protesters clamoring for political changes after the ouster of Mubarak following 18 days of mass protests. Mubarak ceded interim authority to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces on Feb. 11 after three decades in power.
Tantawi met the new Cabinet after the ceremony and discussed the importance of restoring security and of having police forces back on the streets “as soon as possible,” according to the state-run Nile News channel. Reports of police abuse fueled the uprising against the regime that started on Jan. 25. Police forces melted away in the early days of the unrest and have yet to full redeploy.
Economic Revival
The Cabinet also talked about reviving the economy, attracting investments to create jobs as well as fighting corruption and improving services, Nile News said.
Restoring security and productivity will be a priority for the government, Prime Minister Essam Sharaf told reporters today. He called on Egyptians abroad to participate in rebuilding the economy and said many countries have offered to help Egypt.
“Don’t worry -- the economy will come back stronger than it was because there is very, very, very strong support for us from abroad,” he said. “We stress that our economy is liberal, in the right direction, within a framework of social justice.”
Sharaf said his government was committed to honoring all international treaties.
Tahrir Square
The military council on March 3 asked Sharaf to form a new Cabinet after Ahmed Shafik resigned the premiership, pressured out by demonstrators. Sharaf addressed protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square the day after he was named for the job. He vowed to do his best to meet their demands and told them he derived his legitimacy from them.
Activists are calling for freeing political prisoners, putting on trial officials accused of corruption and dismantling the state security agency, widely accused of stifling dissent and committing human-rights violations.
“This is the first Cabinet that reflects the choice of the people. It includes ministers who participated in the revolution and who supported it,” said Ziad Elelaimy, a member of the Alliance of the Youths’ Revolution, a coalition of protesting groups. “They can implement the demands of the revolution,” he said in a phone interview before the swearing-in ceremony.
Popular Support
Sharaf and Arabi were among those who joined protesters during the uprising in Tahrir Square, the hub of mass demonstrations, Elelaimy said, which endeared them to many activists. Arabi’s name was among those suggested by the coalition to Sharaf for inclusion in the Cabinet, he said.
The new government and the ruling council now face the challenge of responding to demands for change while jumpstarting an economy hard hit by the unrest and restoring security.
Egypt may post economic growth of 1.5 percent “at best” this year following the unrest, Kai Stukenbrock, regional director for the sovereign ratings group at Standard & Poor’s, said today on a conference call. Growth may fall to zero, Stukenbrock said.
In the last few days protesters have gathered outside state security buildings and stormed a number of them after reports agents were burning and shredding incriminating documents.
Egyptian prosecutors have ordered the arrest of 47 policemen accused of burning documents belonging to the state security agency, Nile News reported today.
Protesters and security forces clashed over the weekend. Tanks were sent to guard the state security building in the southern city of Assiut after demonstrators tried to storm it March 5, saying its main purpose is to spy on dissidents, Al Arabiya television reported.
Security forces also fought demonstrators near a state security building in Alexandria on March 4, killing one person and injuring four, Al Arabiya said, citing a witness.
Egypt’s stock market will open after a new Cabinet is formed, Khaled Seyam, head of the bourse, told Al Jazeera television two days ago. The bourse has been closed since Jan. 27 after the benchmark EGX 30 Index fell 16 percent amid the uprising.
To contact the reporter on this story: Mariam Fam in Cairo at mfam1@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net.
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