Cairo: Egypt unveiled a reshuffled cabinet, raising the number of government portfolios held by President Mohammad Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood to seven. Ten ministers, including those of the interior and finance, have been replaced in the cabinet shake-up, which comes less than two months before parliamentary elections, reported state media.
In the latest moves, the ministries of local development, transport and supply have been given to the Brotherhood, which secured the portfolios of manpower, youth, higher education and media in the government formed in August.
The newcomers to the cabinet, led by Prime Minister Hesham Qandil, includes Mohammad Ebrahim as minister of the interior, Atef Helmi as minister of telecommunications, Amr Salem for the ministry of parliamentary affairs, Mohammad Ali Bashir as minister of local development, Ahmad Emam as minister of electricity and Hatem Abdul Latif as minister of transport.
Meanwhile, Al Mursi Hejazi, an economics professor, was put in charge of the ministry of finance, replacing Mumtaz Al Saeed. The replacement comes a few days before Egypt resumes negotiations with the International Monetary Fund to secure a $4.8 billion (Dh17.63 billion) which is badly needed by the country to prop up its battered economy and regain investors’ confidence.
Ministers of civil aviation, supply and the environment were also replaced in the reshuffle, apparently aimed to allay public discontent over economic woes and a lack of street security.
“The cabinet change was not based on allocating quotas for political parties,” said Karem Radwan, an official in the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP). “Decision-makers depended on efficiency and proper qualifications in making their choices.”
The FJP head Saad Al Katatni pledged that his party will offer “all necessary support” for the revamped government.
However, the opposition was quick to dismiss the cabinet change as ineffectual. “There is no actual change,” said Waheed Abdul Majuid, a senior official in the main opposition bloc, the National Salvation Front. “The reshuffle reflects the absence of any vision to address the crises being experienced by the country. The policies adopted by the decision-makers are the same pursued by Mubarak but with those in charge merely growing beards.”
The latter remark was a reference to former president Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled in a popular revolt in February 2011.
Qandil, a bearded technocrat, is not a Brotherhood member but is believed to be a sympathiser of Islamists, who have dominated post-Mubarak Egypt.
The political party or bloc who gains the majority in the upcoming parliamentary polls will have the right to form the next government under a new constitution approved last month.
