New appointments see more academics become provincial governors, Gamal Essam El-Din reports The day after the new cabinet was sworn in, President Hosni Mubarak appointed 10 new governors, and shifted three others to different locales. Abdel-Azim Wazir was moved from the Nile Delta governorate of Damietta to Cairo; Fathi Saad of the Middle Delta governorate of Gharbiya became governor of Giza; and Fouad Saadeddin, previously governor of Ismailia, became governor of the Delta governorate of Menoufiya. The new governors included: Fathi El-Baradie, chairman of the consultative Shura Council's Arab, Foreign and Defence Affairs Committee and Ain Shams University's Architecture Department (Damietta); Cairo University law professor Mohamed Gaafar (Beni Suef); Assiut University President Mohamed Rafaat (Al-Fayoum); Menoufiya University's Faculty of Agriculture Dean Othman Assal (Beheira); State Security Agency Director Salah Salama (Kafr El-Sheikh); Deputy Interior Minister for East Delta Security Affairs Said El-Beltagui (Sohag); army General Abu Bakr El-Rashidi (New Valley); presidential guard chief Sabri Al-Adawi (Ismailia); administrative court judge Yehia Abdel-Meguid (Al-Sharqiya); and National Potable Water and Sanitary Drainage Agency Chairman El-Shafie El-Dakrouri (Gharbiya). Cairo Opera House chairman Samir Farag became chairman of the autonomous Luxor City Council in the same reshuffle. On 17 July, Mubarak mapped out the newly appointed governors' priorities, which include boosting decentralisation; containing the population explosion (especially in rural areas); improving public services; forging closer contacts with civil society organisations; giving special care to limited-income citizens and tackling chronic and acute problems like environmental degradation and erosion of fertile agricultural land. According to presidential spokesman Maged Abdel-Fattah, Mubarak "told the new governors that runaway population growth is the most dangerous problem Egypt will face over the next decade". Mubarak indicated that the only way the "new governors would be able to tackle this problem, would be to both engage civil society and business organisations, and stimulate the role of local councils in raising people's awareness of the dangers of population growth, and the importance of attracting more investments to their respective governorates". Opposition and independent politicians were alternately ambivalent and critical about the new governors. According to independent MP Ayman Nour, the governors' reshuffle was extremely limited and highly insignificant. Nour described it as a case "of cut and paste: while we partially know why some cabinet ministers left and others joined, we were entirely in the dark regarding why some provincial governors left, and why others replaced them." Nour said the most discernible change was that the new governors included more university professors. "This is a new development in light of the fact that senior security and army officers used to hold the largest quota of local administration system positions. It is also in line with the fact that the new government led by Ahmed Nazif includes a larger number of technocrat university professors." During Mubarak's 22 years as president, Nour said, loyalty to the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), and security and stability issues, have always been the two paramount factors deciding the selection of new provincial governors. "Look at the previous governors' reshuffle [in July, 2001], when eight new governors were appointed, most of them belonging to either the army or security forces," said Nour, who has submitted a draft law to parliament on restructuring the beleaguered local administration system. Another significant aspect of last week's governors' reshuffle was the absence of Youssef Wali's influence. The former Deputy Prime Minister and Agriculture Minister was known to be very influential in the hiring and firing of governors, basing his decisions on potential candidates' loyalty to him. In the new lineup, Mohamed Raafat replaced Saad Nassar, a Wali associate, as governor of Al-Fayoum, from which Wali hails. Wafd Party chairman Noaman Gomaa said both the cabinet and governors' reshuffles would not result in improvements citizens could actually feel, as long as the changes were motivated by loyalty to the NDP more than securing development objectives. "Provincial governors who support NDP candidates in elections, maintain the personal interests of its official deputies in parliament, and cooperate with the police in maintaining provincial security, are usually the ones who stay in power the longest, or get promoted to positions in the cabinet," Gomaa said. A senior MP with parliament's local administration committee called the governors' reshuffle disappointing. The MP, who asked not to be identified, questioned how Wazir and Saad -- "two governors who proved to be under achievers in their Delta governorates -- were shifted to top Egypt's two most important governorates -- Cairo and Giza." Shifting governors from the Delta or Upper Egypt to Cairo or Giza had proved futile in the past, he said. Nour and other political figures said democratising the local administration system was a necessity. "This primarily means that provincial governors must be elected rather than selected, while local councils must act like real mini-parliaments in order to be effective watchdogs of governors' performance," said Nour.
