Many assumed it was part of an elaborate manoeuvre to pave the way for the widely anticipated announcement by Field-Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt’s minister of defence and the leader of last July’s coup that ousted the Muslim Brotherhood, that he will run for president. Technically, the popular general must resign his military post in order to qualify as a candidate. Others saw the shift as an attempt to clean the government’s slate. Grievances have accumulated, including frustration at power cuts, an unprecedented wave of strikes by government workers, and anger over the ferocity of a crackdown against dissent that has broadened from the Brothers to critics of every stripe.
Egypt’s interim president, Adly Mansour, quickly tipped the outgoing minister of housing, Ibrahim Mahlab, to form a cabinet. Mr Mahlab made clear that most of the old ministers would stay. These include both Mr Sisi, prolonging speculation about his expected presidential bid, and the tough minister of interior, Muhammad Ibrahim. The departing ministers include the few faces associated with Egypt’s fractious non-Islamist political opposition. So the new administration will have a harder-line complexion. Several of its members were closely associated with the pre-revolutionary regime of Hosni Mubarak.
Mr Ibrahim says that the prime minister-designate has promised “full logistical backing” for the fight against terrorism. This will please supporters of his tough approach, which has seen thousands of suspected Brotherhood sympathisers imprisoned and hundreds killed in clashes with police. Security forces have also suffered heavy losses; in the Delta province of Sharqiya, assassins have shot dead over a dozen officers in recent weeks. The minister himself survived an attempt on his life in November.
Critics of Mr Ibrahim, however, contend that his toughness is not bearing fruit. A suicide-bomber killed three South Korean tourists and their Egyptian bus driver on February 16th, yards from the heavily secured border between Egypt’s Sinai peninsula and Israel. The killings marked a disturbing change to a civilian target by the group that claimed responsibility, an al-Qaeda affiliate based in the Sinai’s lawless north-east, where the Egyptian army is mounting a brutal counter-insurgency.
The inner core of Egypt’s state appears confident that its security clampdown, still backed by a large segment of the public and Egypt’s mostly co-opted media, will carry the day. It helps that wealthy Arab neighbours continue to pump in money to prop up Egypt’s foundering economy. Yet the hesitancy of Mr Sisi to commit himself to a presidential bid suggests that Egypt’s army remains wary of taking ownership of the country’s myriad problems.
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