After the resignation of the Cabinett under Essam Sharaf on Monday, Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) approached former Prime Minister Kamal Ganzouri on Thursday to form a new government. Ganzouri accepted the request of Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, head of the ruling military council, to form a new government on Friday. Ganzouri will remain prime minister until the upcoming parliamentary elections are finalized, through at least January 10. Then, when the Parliament is elected, it will vote for Ganzouri to stay or to leave as a prime minister. Ganzouri was born in Giza in 1933, and studied economics and received his PhD from the University of Michigan. He is married and has three daughters. All of them studied at university, with two of them being engineers and the other with a degree in accounting. During the 1970s and 1980s, Ganzouri served as a board member of the Sadat Academy for Administrative Sciences, as economic adviser to the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa, was a member of the Adviser to the President and a member of the National Specialized Councils of production, education and services. In 1973, he became professor in the National Planning Institute. From 1974–1975, Ganzouri worked as undersecretary of the Planning Minister before he became the director of the National Planning Institute in 1977 and the Minister of Planning in 1982. In 1976 and 1977 he also held two governorates: the New Valley State and the Bani Suef State. From 1996-1999 he was Egypt's prime minister under ousted president Hosni Mubarak. One of his major projects was to develop and reclaim new land away from the River Nile Valley. His specialty in planning helped him to work out a plan of how Egypt should develop through 2017, but has yet to take off due to the unrest in the country. Moreover, he improved Egypt's relations with the International Monetary Fund by completing the only program ever completed between Egypt and the international bank since 1961. During his time as a Prime minister, poverty was reportedly reduced from 21 to 17 percent, government statistics show. During his time as a prime minister, he achieved great distinction as a consequence of his engagement with the poor as well as with the opposition. He was named “the Minister of the Poor” and the “Minister of the Opposition.” Although Ganzouri has distanced himself from Mubarak's regime, his appointment as the new prime minister of the interim government of Egypt could inflame the mood in Friday's million-man-march in Tahrir Square. BM
