Whether Ebeid stays on as prime minister remains to be seen, but his cabinet's days are numbered. In two separate articles below, Gamal Essam El-Din and Sherine Abdel-Razek examine the record of the four-and-half year old cabinet When Atef Ebeid was appointed prime minister more than four and a half years ago, hopes were high that a pragmatic technocrat of his type would embrace a platform of sweeping economic, political and social reform. Although the ultimate responsibility for Egypt's political agenda rests with President Hosni Mubarak, it was generally assumed that Ebeid -- unlike his domineering predecessor, Kamal El-Ganzouri -- would show more receptiveness to the need for change, thus conveying a message to the world that Egypt would be moving vigorously along the path towards liberalisation and integration into the global community. The expectation was that Ebeid, in collaboration with a more harmonious cabinet, would not only move the privatisation programme forward, but also ensure that civil society organisations, opposition parties as well as the media, gained greater freedoms. Today, with a cabinet reshuffle clearly on the way, there is general agreement that most of the hopes that had been pinned on Ebeid and his government had been summarily dashed. The moment Al-Ahram Chief Editor Ibrahim Nafie published the first verifiable news of the expected reshuffle, public opinion breathed a rather audible sigh of relief. Amr Rabie, a political analyst with Al-Ahram's Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, said that Ebeid's government had failed miserably at both its economic aims, as well as in engineering any kind of significant political reform. Rabie attributed this to the dominant influence of the old guard, and their entrenched interest in standing firmly against change. While Rabie defined the old guard as those who had been in office for tens of years or more , "the real technical meaning of old guard is the group that includes those who received their political education in late President Gamal Abdel- Nasser's socialist organisations, and have held cabinet posts since President Mubarak came to power more than two decades ago." The public sees the old guard as primarily including former Information Minister Safwat El- Sherif, the newly appointed Shura Council chairman, as well as State Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Kamal El-Shazli, Deputy Prime Minister and Agriculture Minister Youssef Wali, and People's Assembly Speaker Fathi Sorour. Rabie adds other figures to the list, notably Education Minister Hussein Kamel Bahaaeddin, Higher Education Minister Mufid Shehab, and Justice Minister Farouk Seif El- Nasr. According to Rabie, "this ageing old guard deliberately delayed the implementation of many of the reforms, aimed at expanding political participation, and suggested by younger members of the ruling National Democratic Party." Cases in point included the old guard's efforts to stonewall both a high- profile NDP plan aimed at conducting a national dialogue with opposition parties, and attempts to annul the emergency law. El-Sherif's recent dismissal from the cabinet, however, has sparked new hopes that the first steps are being taken to actually dismantle the old guard, and move the nation in the direction of faster paced change. When El-Sherif became Shura Council speaker, Culture Minister Farouk Hosni was designated as the Information Ministry's caretaker. Hosni told Al- Ahram Weekly that his short-term responsibilities included rectifying the relationship between the ministries of information and culture. "They are not competitors," Hosni said. "On the contrary, they complement one another... like two bodies with one soul." Hosni suggested that, "with Egypt's rich and unique cultural heritage and its efficient information infrastructure, Egyptian television could become a prime media tool to attract the entire world's attention." No major changes would be taking place at present, though, assured Hosni. "My responsibility is to keep the boat afloat until the change takes place," he told the Weekly. Hosni also said predictions that the ministry might be divided into separate authorities were also premature. Speculation regarding Wali being stripped of the agriculture portfolio and entrusted with chairing the ineffective state-run Specialised National Councils think tank has also been on the rise, as is talk of El- Shazli stepping down from the parliamentary affairs post he has held since 1993. In parliamentary circles, El- Sherif's removal was seen as a real politik lifting of the old guard taboo; the next step, said the prognosticators, would be to strip El- Sherif and El-Shazli of their NDP posts as well. The Shura Council's NDP majority speaker Mohamed Ragab, however, suggested that the old guard's role in crippling the Ebeid government's performance was being highly exaggerated. "The difficulties faced by Ebeid's government were mainly inherited from his predecessor," Ragab said. Ebeid was personally to blame for his government's failure to deliver, said Al-Ahram's Rabie. The prime minister was fond of painting a rosy picture of the economy, often providing lavish promises and impressive figures to bolster the impression that achievements had been made. Rabie said this had created a major gap between what the government was saying it had done, and what people were actually experiencing. The result was a rapid erosion of the public's trust. A case in point was Ebeid's March 2003 announcement, in parliament, that his government's political reform achievements were "unprecedented". Ebeid said, "my government is in the process of broadening the scope of political reform, and I'm sure that Egypt is capable of becoming a beacon of democracy in the entire Arab world." According to Rabie, this was just one of many statements that were as far from reality as could be. He also cited Ebeid's comments in February 2002, blaming a tragic fire on an Upper Egyptian train on the misconduct of passengers, for the prime minister's immense unpopularity. Former Economy Minister Mustafa El-Said cited the lack of teamwork in Ebeid's cabinet as a basic hindrance to its performance. "In many cases, cabinet ministers were working in isolation from one another, which, of course, came at the expense of constructive action," said El-Said. The former minister was also critical of the old guard for seemingly being above any kind of criticism, either within the cabinet itself, or in parliament. Left-leaning MP Hamdeen Sabahi said, "at times, Wali would even serve as the de-facto prime minister." Ragab and other commentators suggested that the only thing that might save Ebeid from extinction was his success at stabilising the Egyptian pound against the dollar. This achievement, they suggested, might even inspire Mubarak to leave the prime minister as is, guiding the country's reform process into the near future. Additional reporting by Nevine El-Aref By Gamal Essam El-Din
