Ahmed Nazif blew into office as the nations seventh prime minister under Hosni Mubarak like a breath of fresh air, already armed with plans for all of us. Among his first priorities: a talk with Falah Kafr El-Hanadwa, the malcontent cartoon peasant from the fictional Upper Egyptian village of Kafr El-Hanadwa (Indian Village).

Every Saturday since the mid-1980s, millions nationwide have turned to satirist Ahmed Ragabs strip in Akhbar Al-Youm to see El-Falah sit down for a chat about the politics of the day with whoever was sitting in the PMs hot seat.

Unlike his predecessors, Nazif beat El-Falah to the punch, telling the editors of Al-Akhbar he hopes the sarcastic, sharp-witted cartoon character might consider burying the hatchet and perhaps change the name of his village from Kafr El-Hanadwa to Kafr El-Azkeyya (Smart Village, the high-tech business complex that was one of Nazifs biggest projects when he was minister of communication and information technology).

The Egyptian citizen is smart by nature and has creative energies in all fields, Nazif said. Why dont we exploit these energies and channel his creativity to reach this goal: to become a nation for smart people? For my part, I promise the new cabinet will pave the road toward that day.

When it comes to paving roads particularly those in villages the fellaheen have good reason not to be terribly trusting. The nation took a bumpy ride with Atef Ebeid and his cabinet, and its too much to expect they will jump onto Nazifs bandwagon without a healthy dose of skepticism. So while El-Falah confessed to having a good feeling about Nazif, he came to his first meeting with the PM late last month armed with his customary list of complaints.

Abdel Naeem sends you his congratulations from the orthopedics unit he was beaten up by the subsidy-card people for complaining about sand in the sugar, garbage in tea and pebbles in the rice, El-Falah began (see illustration previous page). Abu El-Fadl sends you his regards from the mental hospital: The poor guy lost it when he learned the Minister of Supply had kept his post. Anyway, he had been in line for bread for 23 straight days without leaving the queue, so at least he can lie down now. And El-Sheikh Farghally sends you his best wishes from his 59th birthday party at the coffee shop, where he still passes every day waiting for the job the government has been promising him since he graduated.

Tamer Youssef / Egypt Today Ahmed Abul Gheit (Foreign Affairs) The veteran diplomat was chosen by Mubarak himself. Expected to focus on bilateral ties.

High unemployment, spiraling prices on basic commodities, rising inflation across the board, a ballooning budget deficit, the return of bread lines and mounting calls for political reform. Its not a legacy anyone would look forward to inheriting, but Nazif is taking it all with apparent ease and washing it down with glasses of unsolicited advice from pundits, intellectuals and the man on the street. The PM may have 34 people sitting at the table in his Council of Ministers, but his shadow Cabinet has quickly swelled to 71 million or so.

Is Nazif, who at 53 is a full 20 years younger than Ebeid, the right man for the job? Even those who complain that hes a politically unskilled technocrat seem willing to give him a honeymoon in which to prove himself. It wont last for long, though: With a presidential referendum mandated for fall 2005, Nazif and his cabinet have just over 12 months to show results before theyre constitutionally required to resign and wait to see whether they get a second mandate.

Of chiefs and Indians

Most of Nazifs self-appointed advisors agree the PM needs to quickly distinguish himself from his predecessor by establishing a tight grip on his Cabinet. Ebeid, they say, had far too many chiefs and not enough Indians in office.

Working in isolation from their peers, most ministers marched to the beat of their own drums, advancing their own pet projects even if it meant killing the initiative of another. Cockfights among ministers were a near-weekly spectacle, making it imperative that Nazif, who often flew below the political radar at MCIT, quickly establish himself as the sole chief beneath Mubarak.

Tamer Youssef / Egypt Today Mamdouh El-Beltagui (Information) Moves from tourism to information, following in the footsteps of Safwat El-Sherif.

Veteran politician Dr. Refaat El-Saeed, a member of the Shura Council and leader of the left-leaning Tagammua Party, prefers to call Ebeid’s ministers “The Emperors.”

We had emperors, and many of them. Each one assumed his goal in life was to score points at the expense of his colleagues over their dead bodies, if necessary, El-Saeed says. As a result, attempts to cut taxes for exporters would get scuttled for the sake of the Ministry of Finances treasury, the anti-monopoly and fair-competition law was frozen for the sake of star businessmen, and the Customs Authority didnt collect its dues because some big fish had even bigger political contacts.

Thats why we saw the minister of finance impose new taxes on many industries, including tourism, without stopping to think about the consequences, El-Saeed continues For example, the treasury gets another LE 2-3 million, but we wind up losing LE 2 billion when the industry suffers and the finance minister doesnt care because what matters most to him is to have people saying, The minister of finance met his target. To hell with the consequences for the rest of Cabinet.

Nazif seems aware of the problem: His first degrees in office forbade his ministers from issuing lofty, unattainable promises (a hallmark of the Ebeid era) and slashed ministers security and transportation details from convoys to a single car, driver and bodyguard. (The only exceptions to the latter are the ministers of interior and foreign affairs.)

As to the members of that Cabinet? There are 34 of them (excluding Nazif, who has yet to appoint a deputy prime minister): 15 returning to their seats in the Ebeid cabinet, three Ebeid ministers who were handed new posts, two whose portfolios have been downgraded, and 14 fresh faces. The 13 who left government service include Safwat El-Sherif (former Minister of Information, now speaker of the Shura Council); Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Agriculture Youssef Wali; Finance Minister Medhat Hassanein; and Minister of Industry Ali El-Saeedi.

Tamer Youssef / Egypt Today Youssef Boutros-Ghali (Finance) The reformer’s patience is rewarded with a promotion. Succeeds Medhat Hassanein.

The new faces include several academics, a reformist NDP heavyweight (Mahmoud Mohieddin as Minister of Investment, the youngest member of Cabinet at 39), two high-profile business leaders (Ahmed El-Maghrabi as Minister of Tourism and Rasheed Mohammed Rasheed as Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade), and ex-Giza Governor Mahmoud Abul Leil as Minister of Justice. Among the key ministers retaining their posts are Interior Minister Habib El-Adly, Minister of Defense Mohammed Hussein Tantawi and Minister of Petroleum Sameh Fahmy. Several veterans have been reassigned to higher-profile posts, including Youssef Boutros-Ghali (from foreign trade to finance) and Mamdouh El-Beltagui (from tourism to information). Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni is now the longest-serving cabinet minister of the Mubarak era.

(For a complete breakdown on whos in and whos out, see boxes; bios of all 34 members of Cabinet start on page 72.)

With the ministers working toward a common goal, a sense of purpose and accountability should filter down through the ranks of the state bureaucracy, says El-Saeed, who smiles as he launches into a favorite story about the need for strong leaders who are unafraid to intervene from above: I once suggested to the Shura Council that we come up with a special award for a state official to reward her for her efforts to destroy the future of Egyptian flower exports. We were just starting to market our flowers in Holland, but this unprecedentedly brilliant womans actions caused some growers to boycott exports altogether. Why? She insisted on inspecting every single flower, counting them, smelling them and documenting her remarks and she only worked during office hours! The result? Lots of dead flowers. The exporters tried to talk with her, but she snapped back that they were trying to interfere with the proper execution of her duties.

Its no surprise that promoting exports is near the top of Nazifs list of priorities for the next 12 months. Among the other targets: attracting more foreign direct investment and encouraging domestic investors; restructuring the subsidy system to direct aid to the most needy; curbing inflation on basic commodities; ensuring citizens have access to basic services; making government more efficient; improving education; spurring scientific research; leading economic growth; encouraging youth to work in the private sector rather than in already overburdened government ministries and offices; making full use of natural resources; supporting private business with tax breaks and by slashing red tape; and reviving the nations political scene while nurturing civil society.

Its a remarkably tall order for just one year, and Nazif has already demanded white papers from each minister, ordering each to outline their goals and how they plan to meet them. The white papers will form the basis of an executive plan for the coming year.

Tamer Youssef / Egypt Today Mahmoud Mohieddin (Investment) The NDP powerhouse and Gamal Mubarak confidant takes a new portfolio.

If all of that sounds familiar (with the possible exception of the planning and execution part) thats because it is, says Milad Hanna.

For the past five years, the president has given the same basic instructions to the prime minister and cabinet: improve living conditions for low-income earners, create jobs the list goes on, says Hanna, a writer, government advisor and holder of the State Honorary Award. And because none of the previous governments made much progress, the president has had to repeat his order over and over and wait for someone to actually make a difference.

Are you an optimist?

Is Nazif the man to do it? While Bill Clinton haggled over the definition of the word is, Hanna wants to debate the definition of change before hell tackle that question.

Im neither a pessimist nor an optimist, he says. Im a fair and impartial thinker, and I believe change, like all other issues in life, can be objective or subjective. Objective change is that which touches upon badly needed reforms in the states organizational skeleton. Subjective change involves new individuals, but no changes to the legal, constitutional or political frameworks.

Tamer Youssef / Egypt Today Ahmed El-Maghrabi (Tourism) The Accor Hotels chief is one of two business leaders running portfolios related to their industries.

Hanna claims that Nazifs pronouncements to date suggest the PM is working from the same outline as Ebeid. So, frankly, I expect the change will be more subjective. Certainly, some of the young ministers will try their best to come up with new solutions, but they will find after a few weeks or months that theyre confined by the considerations that govern the current political system.

El-Saeed shares the same concern. Above all, he hopes the new faces will result in new policies, saying implementation counts only when the programs are actually worth putting in place. Bad policy, not bad planning, was responsible for the mess Nazif has inherited, the Tagammua leader says.

An incompetent person tapped to implement a good policy can achieve mediocre results, he says, and a competent person coupled with a good policy can rise above our expectations. But competent people can only minimize the negative outcomes of bad policies; they cant do much else. And incompetent people with bad policies? Well, theyll lead us into a catastrophe, just like Ebeid and his cabinet did.

Egyptian prime ministers are rarely unfamiliar with their predecessors policies: Ebeid was a key minister of Kamal El-Ganzouris cabinet just as Nazif was a player in Ebeids. Each complains about the legacy left by the last man to hold his seat.

Thats why I sent [Nazif] a message in the newspapers, telling him that while he probably wasnt a partner in many of the decisions Ebeid made, he was present but said little, for one reason or another.

Tamer Youssef / Egypt Today Rasheed Mohammed Rasheed (Foreign Trade and Industry) Like El-Maghrabi, the Unilever chief resigned his corporate post to take office.

Mistakes accumulate, El-Saeed continues, and they peaked during the Ebeid era. Nazif is inheriting them, so how can he expect to solve the same set of problems with the same failed policies? Is he ready and able to change policy directions?

Gamal Badawi, the respected political historian, says Nazifs cabinet isnt a political one that can chart new directions or lay the pillars of long-awaited political reforms, but rather a team with orders to execute the instructions Mubarak handed Nazif in his letter of appointment: Speed up the implementation of reform and modernization plans, and lift the burden from the citizens shoulders.

Badawi explains the constraints have as much to do with the nations political structure as they do with the problems prime ministers inherit from their predecessors: Since the 1952 revolution, cabinet has morphed from a political body into a technical or administrative one. Policy directions were set first by the Revolutionary Council, then by the Presidency; Cabinet is left to implement.

The fact that ministers are appointed, not elected, has only made the situation worse, argues the noted historian Abdel Azim Ramadan. In January 1956, the first constitution after the revolution abolished the Council of Ministers and empowered the president as the executive authority. The Councils collective responsibility and role as an accountable social institution disappeared. By empowering the president to appoint and remove ministers, we turned cabinet into a body of mere assistants, Ramadan says.

Under our constitutional system, he continues, the president is the real prime minister; the appointed prime minister is sort of his henchman.

Tamer Youssef / Egypt Today Maged George (Environment) The military engineer takes over his struggling portfolio from Mamdouh Riyadh.

The case against Nazif

Four things seem to bother Nazifs detractors most: Hes a proud technocrat, he enjoys the company of business leaders, he lacks a base of political support and (contradictorily enough) he has close ties to the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP).

Ramadan isnt terribly upset at the notion most loudly proclaimed by El-Wafd leader Noaman Gomaa in his partys daily newspaper that Nazifs hands are somehow unclean because the vast majority of his ministers are NDP members. Egyptian political parties are too weak, Ramadan says, and they dont transfer power to one another [through elections] as in the West. Thats why power is concentrated in the NDP.

Should it matter that Nazif and his team are party members, or that he plans to hold meetings with NDPs leadership ahead of the partys fall convention?

Neither the NDP nor the opposition is very popular with the average man on the street right now, says freelance economic analyst Mona El-Shafie, whose byline is common in all the national dailies. If the opposition had ever offered reasonable, feasible programs, they would have become so popular by now that the president would have appointed one of their members as prime minister. The fact is that the opposition is so busy wallowing in self-pity that its ignorant of whats going on around it. All it can do is criticize every decision the government makes.

Tamer Youssef / Egypt Today Mahmoud Abul Leil (Justice) The high-profile ex-Giza Governor takes over from Farouk Seif El-Nasr.

Still, El-Shafie adds, the Nazif government may be the average citizens best hope for change. As she sees it, the nation is sick and tired of watching Cabinet members fight political battles with one another. Nazif, she says, is a strong step in the right direction.

Im not going to play the role of Ebeid and say, Everythings rosy now, but we do have good reason to be hopeful: The PM is now a strong, well-regarded man who knows exactly what problems were dealing with and the urgency of confronting them. So instead of throwing stones at him, instead of condemning him as a technocrat, lets leave him to do the job. Logical, well-studied and well-implemented solutions will help; jingoistic political or nationalist slogans wont put food in our mouths.

As for the argument that Nazif and the other technocrats in his cabinet lack the political skills and power to get the job done? Its a valid concern, says Badawi.

Were not being degrading when we say Nazifs cabinet is full of technocrats. They may well represent all that is best in the scientific world, but they dont embody the political side of the state. The notion of a technocracy originated with the industrial revolution in Europe, and the expression was first coined by Henry Smith in 1919 when he called on scientists and specialists to assume the responsibility of governing after the First World War, he continues.

But none of that, Badawi says, means technocrats can operate without an awareness of their political environment. Those reservations aside, even Badawi is willing to give Nazif and his ministers a chance.

Theres nothing wrong with giving them the opportunity to try, he says. Maybe they can solve our seemingly intractable problems and pave the way for the reforms the NDPs Supreme Policies Committee is so busy designing these days, he adds with a chuckle.

El-Saeed has deeper reservations about eggheads with book learning but no knowledge of the mean streets of politics. A technocrat with no political knowledge or context is usually a catastrophe, El-Saeed says. Politics isnt a profession its a feeling. I still remember the words of an Egyptian philosopher and physician: We dont treat illnesses, we treat sick people. Its about people, not books. Theories in books dont magically solve problems, and failure to tailor a theory to a political reality can help re-create the mess that occurred under the leadership of Dr. Ebeid.

Maybe, El-Saeed later says, people are reticent about Nazif because they know so little about his area of expertise: What, exactly, does a software engineer do?

Weve heard about economic technocrats, he says, and weve heard of them in the social sciences, but were not very familiar with a software technocrat. Its a new thing for us.

Ramadan and El-Shafie, though, see Mubaraks choice as inspired. We live in the age of technology and technocrats. That explains the presidents decision, I think, Ramadan says.

At least well have a prime minister who appreciates the value of information and facts, El-Shafie adds. Hell think twice before he opens his mouth with his millions and billions what, no more ascribing a dollar value to the Pyramids, as Ebeid once did? Hell be objective about whats feasible, something we desperately need in the coming years. It cant be that the whole planet, including much of the Arab world, is taking huge steps forward in science, business and technology while we take these little baby steps, she concludes.

But El-Saeed still isnt convinced.

If the vision behind the appointment of Nazif is to have us log into the electronic and information age and computerize everything in our lives, then the logic is debatable. How can we become a high-tech economy when we have a 30-percent illiteracy rate? When around 16 percent of students drop out of school each year? Poverty and illiteracy are key players in the nations political and economic development. How can you ask a person who cant write his own name to log onto the web?

The priority, El-Saeed continues, should be to raise the standard of living and fight illiteracy. These days, people still prefer to buy a fuul sandwich than a newspaper.

As he sees it, many are being hypocritical in their welcome of Nazif. Everyone is raising the banner of the information age as a welcome note to Nazif. How entertaining! Well have high-tech hypocrisy as a consequence! One of the top NDP leaders showed up on national television the other day urging citizens to surf the partys website to get information on what the party is doing! Again, these people cannot write their own names.

Those kinds of mistakes, El-Saeed claims, will only disappear with the passing of time. The NDP has good politicians who arent technocrats, and technocrats who arent political. The technocrats can gain political skills only through practice by training, going to meetings and seminars, by debating with party members and the boss without fear of being blacklisted. In a year or two, these technocrats can turn into politicians.

The problem, he concludes, is that they dont have that much time.

As for putting business leaders in Cabinet roles? Many in the business community praised the appointments of Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade Rasheed Mohammed Rasheed (head of Unilever Egypt, Middle East, North Africa and Turkey) and Minister of Tourism Ahmed El-Maghrabi (head of Accor Hotels). Others, though, assailed the appointments anti-business sentiment still runs deep among those who cut their political teeth in the Nasser and early Sadat eras.

Both men have stepped down from their corporate roles for the duration of their government service in the wake of an El-Wafd newspaper campaign against them.

Some people attack just for the sake of attacking, says El-Shafie. They think its their job to point out the negative aspects, and if there arent any, they invent them. Whats wrong with having two of the most prominent businessmen in town, who are success stories and have clean records? Theyre not looking to make a fortune by joining Cabinet because theyre already filthy rich. Maybe they can actually offer viable solutions to the problems their industries face. Whats wrong with that? Whats wrong if their companies benefit along with hundreds of others from their solutions? Or do we have to make sure their firms go bankrupt so we can see theyre clean-handed and applaud their integrity?

We have to stop this nonsense and let them do their jobs without the fear of being stoned, she says.

The list of dos and donts

If Nazif does turn into Santa, his shadow Cabinet has a long list of wishes for him to consider.

We need a bundle of reforms in education, media and problem-solving techniques, El-Saeed says. And you should know that there will be no economic progress without political reforms. We also need to make certain that the taxpayers and the poor arent the only ones paying a price we need to guard against the big fish who gets a 10-year tax break in, say, Tenth of Ramadan City, runs his factory and, the day before his exemption runs out, winds down the first company and opens another one to get another tax break.

Transparency will only come through democracy, he continues. I once visited a former prime minister. I had information from a credible source that said [state-owned] Banque du Caire had loaned LE 1.2 billion to a single investor. The former PM banged his fist on the desk and declared I was wrong. Im telling you, he said, that this is impossible! No bank is allowed to loan more than LE 200 million and the borrower has to have assets worth more than the loan.

Two months later, the truth came out. I was right. Had there been some measure of transparency, we could have avoided that particular problem, to say nothing of others.

Then there’s the issue of pressure at home and abroad on Nazif’s government to tackle tough political reforms. While El-Saeed thinks reform is a welcome step, he joins many in warning against a wholesale application of foreign principles. “Globalization is not a Qur’an or a Bible to be followed word-for-word. We need to study carefully. There’s nothing wrong with the IMF or the World Bank or the Americans; the problem is that there’s a smart way to reform, and a stupid way,” the Tagammua leader asserts.

While El-Saeed is adamant that Nazif must also tackle corruption, El-Shafie says the way the government deals with its problems is more frustrating to the average person than graft in the system.

Take investment, she says. A prospective investor can go insane working through all the forms, decrees, draft laws and meetings that aim to remove obstacles to investment. Every month, theres a Cabinet meeting to address new procedures or new remedies. Sit down and talk with a foreign investor and youll be told how they feel they need psychotherapy to help them sort out everything theyve just been through. Its unbelievable it makes you feel like reforming the investment climate here is as complicated and futile as the Middle East peace process.

At least now we have a Ministry for Investment lets keep our fingers crossed.

Ramadan, meanwhile, has one foot in the optimists camp and the other with the pessimists.

Theres no cabinet shuffle that disappoints 100 percent or thrills 100 percent since there are always different trends in society: no change can suit everyones tastes or meet everyones needs, he says, adding that among the biggest winners in the shuffle were university professors: They kicked out a minister of state for higher education who had enraged university professors for four years.

The educational reforms that professors and teachers (and Gamal Mubarak) have been calling for, Ramadan stresses, are vital in order for a culture of democracy to grow: Its the change that would empower democracy and, at the same time, fight unemployment and the high cost of living. I want to be optimistic about the Nazif government, he continues. I want to believe help is on the way; otherwise, this change will be without meaning. And its a tough job: governing today has become extremely complicated due to both regional and international factors.

Hanna, though tops the list of pessimists, saying he believes there will be no progress in six months and that Mubarak will have to step in.

The president could issue a decree that forms a committee of Egypts best thinkers, politicians, media people, governors and top members of the Peoples Assembly and Shura Council, Hanna predicts. Then hell give them a deadline lets say six months to transform the Alexandria Declaration into an executive program for the next government, handing the appropriate portions off to Cabinet, the Parliament, etc.

I also hope the president will issue a decree transforming the local administrations into local governments making all posts from village council through the governor elected positions. This would be the best gift the president could give us before seeking a fifth term. It would be the first concrete step toward true democracy and a regular handover of power; its long-term effects on the region would be enormous, Hanna says.

While hes not reading presidential tea leaves, El-Saeed says Egypt has hit a point where political reform is inevitable, whether Nazif leads it or not.

From experience, I can tell you the oppositions screams dont always fall on deaf ears. We campaigned against people staying in power for too long; we begged for Tefal seats so ministers couldnt stick to their seats forever. And in the end, there was change. Maybe the new ministers arent yet as skilled, but the ongoing political process will see serious change come.

Perhaps the biggest thing Nazif can do to help the process along is to insist his ministers abide the first order he gave them: First, tell no lies. El-Saeed still smiles when he remembers taking on Ebeid at a meeting of the Shura Council, telling the now-former PM, In China, there are three kinds of lies: minor lies, major lies and statistics. Statistics [like yours] are the worst kind of lies, Mr. Prime Minister.

Dr. Nazifs cabinet will come up with its own numbers, El-Saeed continues, but theyll have to work hard to get the people to believe them to regain some of the trust and respect that theyve lost even when the statistics are as plain and real as the hand in front of my face.

As El-Saeed sees it, the former prime minister is the little boy who cried wolf. We all learned the wolf story when we were young. That was Atef Ebeid: He used to scream Prosperity! Prosperity! Well solve all your problems! Your problems are all solved! He fed us with false figures, with fabricated information and a state budget full of holes. Now, people are being asked to accept that change is coming. Theyll resist at first; Dr. Nazifs team will first have to prove it is trustworthy.

After all, the diminutive peasant will be talking with one of the tallest prime ministers weve ever had: Hell want to make certain Nazif cant claim the El-Falah was too far down for his pleas for change to reach the ears above. et

A NOTE TO OUR READERS:

Due to an unfortunate oversight in the editing process, we inadvertently referred to Dr. Refaat El-Saeed as the “former” leader of El-Tagammua Party in the print edition of this story. As readers of Egypt Today know, we interviwed Dr. El-Saeed earlier this year upon his assumption of the party’s leadership there’s nothing “former” about his position. A correction will run in the September 2004 print edition. We deeply regret the error and apologize for any inconvenience our mistake may have caused Dr. El-Saeed, whom we cherish as a long-standing friend of the magazine. et