Interim President Adli Mansour replaced 20 new governors and appointed 11 deputies who took the oath of office in front of Mansour. Seven governors maintained their posts. According to media adviser Ahmed Al-Meslemani, Mansour met with the governors after they sworn in along with Vice President Mohamed Al-Baradei, Prime Minister Hazem Al-Beblawi and the ministers of electricity, local development, supply, petroleum, health, education and the presidential advisers. Al-Meslemani said the governors who kept their posts were those of Al-Wadi Al-Gadid, Port Said, Aswan, Giza, Marsa Matrouh, and those of North and South Sinai. “The governor of Al-Bahr Al-Ahmar has not yet been appointed,” said Al-Meslemani. Most of the newly appointed governors served in the military. In mid-June, a governor reshuffle took place during the regime of ousted president Mohamed Morsi. It brought into office 17 new governors, most of them Islamists. Those appointments triggered controversy nationwide as critics of Morsi charged that the move came as part of his attempt to Islamise all governmental entities. Meanwhile, the Salafist Nour Party turned down an offer made to them by Mansour to take part in the new governors' reshuffle; they refused to recognise the interim president as well as the interim government. Sherif Taha, official spokesman of the Nour Party, pointed out that the current interim cabinet, formed following the removal of Morsi, does not contain any Islamist-oriented figures. “I expect deliberate exclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood from the new appointments, since the interim government and Brotherhood have not yet reconciled,” said Taha while adding that the Nour Party had been always against the idea of one faction dominating the regime on the account of other factions. “The current interim government as well as the newly appointed governors does not represent different sects of the society,” argued Taha. Among the newly appointed governors are: Galal Al-Said was appointed as Cairo governor; Tarek Al-Mahdi, Alexandria; Ibrahim Hammad, Assiut; Tarek Saadeddin, Luxor; Ali Abdel-Rahman, Giza; Omar Al-Shawadfi, Daqahliya; Mohamed Naeem, Gharbiya; Mohamed Abdel-Zaher, Qalioubiya; Salaheddin Ziada, Minya; and Mustafa Hadhoud, Beheira. New appointments also included Mohamed Al-Haggan for Qena governorate, Said Abdel-Azizi for Sharqiya governorate, Mahmoud Ateeq became governor of Sohag, and Mohamed Agwa for Kafr Al-Sheikh. This is in addition to the appointment of some new deputies to the governors. Nine of them were scheduled to take the oath of office on Tuesday. The remaining two are to take the oath later. Among the nine are Nadia Abdu, deputy to Beheira governorate, and Sami Sedhom Abbas, deputy to Sharqiya governorate. Adel Labib, minister of local development, confirmed that the newly appointed governors were carefully selected in order to be able to serve the needs of the current phase. After the governors' meeting with ministers and Mansour, Labib told the media, “governors have been informed what their tasks are. All governors have been requested to solve the problems of slums and activate all service sectors for the public such as cleaning streets and properly paving them,” said Labib. During the meeting governors were requested to find funds required for maintaining the sewage network and creating new ones. This is in addition to creating new networks of potable water in order to cover the whole country. Meanwhile, Al-Meslemani said he believed that the new appointments will gain the people's approval by more than 60 per cent. “This is expected because the public was satisfied with the appointments of the interim cabinet members,” said Al-Meslemani. Some of the newly appointed governors had the same post during the regime of former president Hosni Mubarak, while others were in sensitive posts in the government such as the Beheira governor who was former deputy head of the intelligence agency. Also his deputy was a leading figure at the dismantled National Democratic Party. Mustafa Al-Sayed, professor of political science at the American University in Cairo, believes that people are now prepared to accept any appointments as long as they are not Islamists. “Islamists have proven their failure during the past year. They were working for the welfare of themselves and their group but not the country's,” said Al-Sayed. Despite the critics' fear of the appointment of governors belonging to the military, the Arabic newspaper Al-Youm Al-Sabei published a recent poll questioning people's position regarding the new appointments. According to the poll's result, 56.9 per cent of the sample was content with the new appointments, whereas 39.8 per cent expressed their disappointment, while 3.1 per cent did not vote. Al-Sayed commented, “no need to fear military appointees. The Armed Forces have proven their efficiency in many difficult situations which the country has gone through during the past period. We need to trust our military and our leaders as well.”
