SOURCE: Monday Morning
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Ebeid will act “at the end of June or the beginning of July at the latest”, Al-Ahram said, with President Hosni Mubarak then naming a new prime minister.

The Al-Ahram editor-in-chief, Ibrahim Nafeh, a close confidant of Mubarak, said in a signed article that “many people in the current government will not return” to the new one. He did not cite names.

The newspaper added that, following the formation of a new government, there would be a sweeping overhaul of provincial governorships.

Al-Ahram said the new team would be tasked with achieving a targeted five-percent growth rate in 2004 gross domestic product (GDP), including greater agricultural production, reining in inflation and stimulating exports.

Analysts say the aim of 76-year-old Mubarak, who has been in office for 23 years since succeeding his assassinated predecessor, Anwar Sadat, is to carry out a radical change that would give the government more credibility.

Unlike Sadat, who named him vice-president in 1975, Mubarak does not have a deputy and could next year embark on a fifth term in office.

The holders of key cabinet posts such as foreign affairs, interior, defense and justice, as well as the economic portfolios, would all change hands, according to Cairo newspapers. And for the first time in Egypt, one or more women could be promoted to the rank of provincial governor.

Ordinary Egyptians have told reporters they want a young prime minister and an injection of new blood in the government, but figures close to Mubarak are opposed to the rise to power of a new generation.

About 60 percent of Egypt’s 70-million population are aged under 35, whereas the average age in the current cabinet is above 60, explaining the rift in political priorities.

That cabinet ministers are too old and have been in power too long is a common refrain on the streets of Egypt.

Apart from the ambitious GDP growth target, the new government’s mission would also be to lower unemployment from the current official figure of 2.1 million, according to Al-Ahram.

Analysts say the Ebeid government has been worn out after having launched several free market reforms.

The last big act came in January 2003 when it floated the exchange rate of the Egyptian pound, at the cost of a more than 50-percent drop in its value against the dollar.

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