The Cabinet of the new Egyptian caretaker Premier, Engineer Essam Sharaf, reaffirmed here Friday that the restoration of security in the country was the top priority. Sharaf asserted that recovery of Egypt’s battered economy would only take place when people felt safe once again. New interior minister, General Mansoor Al-Essawy, a highly-respected figure in his 80s, has promised the fast full redeployment of police forces across Egypt’s 28 governorates, a development already apparent in the streets of the capital, Cairo. Yet several looting, theft and kidnapping incidents are still haunting Egyptians even in Cairo, home to almost a quarter of Egypt’s population, and that has forced many Egyptians to stop sending their children to school .
These incidents, coupled with a rumor machine In some cases, are also causing people to abstain from work, where many institutions are still witnessing unfamiliar strikes and sit-ins demanding for higher wages, something the current government has promised to work on, at the appropriate time, while urging workers to start production to avoid digging a deep economic hole that will be hard to get out from.
AL-Essawy has meanwhile promised to open a new page in the police-people relationship, ordering the printing of a banner that portrays a police apology to the nation for the mistakes of the past to be highlighted in all police stations across the country.
Sharaf’s appointment by the Army, as Prime Minister, was a victory for the 25th of January Revolution, whose leaders had insisted on removing former Premier Ahmad Shafiq, whom they saw as a loyalist to the ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, along with the former ministers of Interior, Justice and Foreign Affairs who were all removed from the new interim Cabinet.
Sharaf, a former transport minister, had quit his job a few years back in protests at the economic policies he saw as detrimental to Egypt’s poor and middle class, and was one of the main figures in Tahrir square in the 18-day revolt that culminated in Mubarak’s departure.
Sharaf, who is considered the first premier in Egypt’s history to be chosen by the public, and whose first official speech was in Tahrir square, has said he believed there are ongoing concerted efforts to try to quell the Revolution, by remnants of the defunct Mubarak regime, and has vowed to quit his post if he finds himself unable to achieve all of the people’s demands.