CAIRO - A group of Egyptian revolutionaries have formed what they call a “shadow government” to present the caretaker Government of Prime Minister Essam Sharaf with mechanisms and suggestions for improving economic, social, and political conditions in Egypt. The Government comprises ministries headed and staffed by juniors most of whom were active in lobbying against the former regime of Hosni Mubarak during Egypt's 18-day popular revolt, which started on January 25. “Our Government will seek to improve the performance of the caretaker Government by suggesting solutions to problems on all fronts,” said Aly Abdel Rahman, the general co-ordinator of the new government and a political activist. “This means that our work will not contradict with the work of the caretaker Government in any way,” he added during a conference at the Press Syndicate in Cairo on Saturday. Almost the first time for the revolutionaries to organise themselves into an entity or an organisation, the new government marks these revolutionaries' debut into the thorny world of real politics. This was a pressing need for them as well as a repeated call by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which started running Egypt's affairs after Mubarak stepped down as president on February 11. The council had appealed for the revolutionaries to form political parties or groups that could present their demands or speak for them in an organised manner. The revolutionaries invited ordinary Egyptians, regardless of whether they have expertise in any given field, to join their Government and present their suggestions so that co-ordinators can forward them to the Essam Sharaf caretaker Government. They distributed applications during the meeting to the attendees and asked them to write down their names and the ministries they wanted to be part of. Many of the audience liked to join the Justice Ministry, while others wanted to be part of the Ministry of Social Solidarity. They explained that these two ministries were essential for justice both inside the courtrooms of the nation and its streets. The Ministry of Social Solidarity is responsible for deciding food subsidies in this country where 21 per cent of the population lives under the poverty line, according to the latest study by the State-run Central Auditing Organisation. Top of the priorities of the shadow government is the need to improve Egypt's educational system. One of the members of the new government said any serious reform in Egypt must start with education. “Education is the backbone of any development anywhere,” he said. “This is why we should pay due attention to it and this educational progress should go hand in hand with the progress of research in the nation's labs.” The revolutionaries called for the formation of an independent committee of the nation's judges to open what they described as “accumulating” corruption files everywhere so that Egypt could retrieve billions of pounds either embezzled or stolen by corrupt governmental officials during Mubarak's 30 years of rule. Mubarak himself and almost all living officials in his successive governments are being interrogated on charges of financial corruption. The former president's two sons are now in temporary detention for the same reason and his wife might follow suit. “We will offer all the needed help for the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces so that it can bring the corrupt to justice,” Abdel Rahman said. “We will also offer help to all Egyptians so that they can be compensated properly for the injustice they were done during Mubarak's reign.”
