President Hosni Mubarak has raised hopes that Egypt is embarking on reform at last with the appointment of a modernising technocrat as prime minister over the weekend following the mass resignation of the Cabinet.
”Finally what we want has happened and the first steps of change have begun,” said an editorial in the newspaper al-Gomhouria, welcoming what many see as the end of the old guard.
Aged 52, youthful by Egyptian standards, incoming Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif is a computer expert who was previously in charge of opening up telecommunications and the internet.
He said the new government’s priority will be to find ”unconventional solutions” but he promised that it ”will be considerate to the beat of the Egyptian family and will work on satisfying their needs for commodities and services”.
The shake-up comes ahead of next year’s presidential referendum and amid open speculation as to whether Mubarak, who is 76 and has had two recent health scares, will seek a fifth six-year term.
Under Mubarak, many Egyptians complain, the country has become politically and economically stagnant. It is easily the most populous Arab state, with almost 70-million inhabitants, but has lost much of its international prestige.
Corruption is rife and unemployment is officially put at 10%, though it is probably double that.
Nazif, who has reportedly been given authority to pick his own Cabinet, spent much of the weekend in meetings while the Egyptian media speculated about his choices.
According to reports, at least nine ministers in the previous government will not return and some ministries will merge, though the key security posts of defence minister and interior minister are unlikely to change.
A prominent opposition figure, Abdel Halem Qandel, dismissed the changes as cosmetic but there is no doubt that the plans for reform are real. Teams of experts in the ruling National Democratic Party have been working on them for months under the supervision of Mubarak’s 41-year-old son, Gamal.
The problem, one senior party official said, is implementation. Even relatively modest changes have tended to flounder in the face of resistance from those affected by them, or when ministers have lost their nerve.
Mubarak has been in power for almost 23 years and some say he is becoming too old to see the reforms through. Given that a presidency in the Arab world is normally a job for life, a decision to retire gracefully could be regarded as a major reform in its own right.
The two most likely successors are Gamal, and Omar Suleiman, the intelligence chief. — Guardian Unlimited Â