In a television interview with the Qatari-based Al-Jazeera 10 days ago President Mohamed Morsi said a cabinet reshuffle would be announced soon. A presidential spokesman said on Tuesday that the upcoming reshuffle has not yet been finalised but will be announced in the next few days. He also indicated that cabinet changes would be accompanied by a limited reshuffle of provincial governors and confirmed that Prime Minister Hisham Kandil would remain. As Al-Ahram Weekly went to press the reshuffle had not been finalised. Informed sources say differences between the Muslim Brotherhood and Kandil are delaying the formation of the new cabinet. Following the resignation of minister of justice Ahmed Mekki, the Muslim Brotherhood has been pressing Kandil to name Hossam Al-Ghiriani, the head of the Constituent Assembly which drafted the new constitution and currently chairman of the National Council for Human Rights, as Mekki's replacement. Although Al-Ghiriani is not a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, opposition forces say he toes the group's line and was instrumental in tailoring the new constitution to serve Islamists. Minister of Information Salah Abdel-Maksoud, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood, is expected to keep his post despite mounting criticism of his performance. In a television interview on 22 April Abdel-Maksoud declared that he would remain in his job. He has been accused of attempting to “Brotherhoodise” the state-owned Television and Radio Union, and a number of demonstrations have been held calling for his dismissal. It is unclear whether Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim will hang on to his post. Non-Islamist opposition forces, led by the secular National Salvation Front (NSF), say their participation in the upcoming parliamentary session is contingent, among other things, on Ibrahim being replaced. The NSF accuses Ibrahim of human rights abuses and hold him responsible for the death of many anti-Brotherhood protesters. Political analyst Gamal Zahran, a former independent MP, told Al-Ahram Weekly that he does not think Ibrahim will be removed. “Ibrahim has turned the Interior Ministry into a puppet in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood,” says Zahran. “His policies aim not to stem street crimes but to defend the buildings and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood.” “Political forces, including Islamists like the ultraconservative Nour Party, agree that an interior minister who acts on the orders of the Muslim Brotherhood can never be trusted and that the upcoming parliamentary elections will not be held in a climate of integrity and fairness as long as Ibrahim is in place,” Zahran states. Kandil told the press on 27 April that the newly-appointed cabinet will be “technocratic” and tasked with achieving economic and political stability. This, says Zahran, means the reshuffle is likely to be limited to a handful of economic and service portfolios. “I do not believe that the Muslim Brotherhood's Minister of Finance Al-Morsi Hegazi will be changed,” says Zahran. “If the change is just technocratic, as Kandil suggests, it will involve little more than cosmetic tinkering. It will not result in a national unity government and is unlikely to bring any economic or political stability to the country.” Kandil told reporters the reshuffle had been necessitated by the desire of a number of cabinet ministers and provincial governors to resign. It is a justification Zahran questions. “It is a different story from Islamist President Morsi's version 10 days ago. Morsi said the aim of the changes was to inject new blood and that new ministers would be selected on the basis of competence.” Zahran speculates that “the cabinet changes could be tied to the expected deal with the International Monetary Fund [IMF].” “Kandil is in need of new faces ready to rubber-stamp the austerity package demanded by the IMF.” Six key portfolios — local administration, transport, internal trade and supply, information, finance and industry — are now in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood. Opposition forces suspect the Brotherhood aims to control several more portfolios and plans to promote its members to provincial governorships. “It is a strategy,” warns Al-Ahram analyst Wahid Abdel-Meguid, “that will push the opposition into boycotting the upcoming elections.” Abdel-Meguid, who is a member of the NSF, notes that “we laid down two basic conditions before we would take part in the poll. We want Kandil to be dismissed and a national unity government appointed and Morsi-appointed Prosecutor-General Talaat Abdallah replaced.” The rejection of these two demands, he says, confirms that “Morsi and the Brotherhood are not so much interested in achieving political and economic stability as in extending their control of the executive, legislative and judicial authorities.” A large number of Islamist MPs in the Shura Council joined in criticism of the Kandil government on Monday. Mohamed Al-Saghir, a member of Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya's Development and Reconstruction Party, said “the Egyptian people have run out of patience with the Kandil government.” Abdallah Badran, a representative of the ultraconservative Salafist Nour Party, warned that “the government of Kandil has to go after it demonstrated it lacks any genuine economic policy.” “This government is only interested in obtaining high interest-rate foreign loans and imposing new taxes on citizens,” said Badran. “They are the same discredited policies followed by the Mubarak regime.” The Nour Party announced this week that it had refused to participate in a reshuffled cabinet. “The Nour Party believes that this government is the major obstacle to getting the country out of its economic and political crisis and that a new national unity government should be formed instead,” said a Nour Party statement. Abdel-Meguid argued that Morsi has rejected a national unity government because “this could produce a forceful prime minister.” “Morsi, like Mubarak, wants the cabinet to act as a secretariat and the prime minister to be nothing more than a yes man.” Some Brotherhood officials argue that there is too little time to replace the Kandil government. Saad Al-Katatni, chairman of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, urged national political forces to put their political and ideological differences aside and support the expected cabinet reshuffle. “In the current political climate, and faced with serious economic woes, everyone should support the cabinet,” he said.
