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Mohamed Morsi's choice of prime minister confirms Egyptian fears

The appointment of Hisham Kandil, from the outgoing cabinet, is a bitter reminder that the revolution is far from complete

Mohamed Morsi, Hussein Tantawi

Mohamed Morsi, centre, is likely to appoint Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, left, as defence minister. Photograph: Sherif Abd El Minoem/AP

Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, has lived up to the worst expectations of him. He may be an experienced old cadre in the Muslim Brotherhood and a dogged parliamentarian, but his choice of prime minister confirms what many suspected: he lacks imagination and flare.

Worse still, he did not seem to have the guts to make a clean break with the old establishment. Perhaps he couldn't. He has picked a minister from the outgoing cabinet for the post. This being the same cabinet he and his Islamist Justice and Freedom party campaigned against for months, but failed to force from office through a vote of no confidence.

If this is the best he could come up with after weeks of consultations, there's little reason to get excited about who the new prime minister might select for his cabinet in what was supposed to be Egypt's first "revolutionary government".

One way in which Hisham Kandil has made history is by being the youngest man to hold the position of prime minister in the history of Egypt. Another first is that he sports a salafi beard. His facial hair has sparked speculation over whether he is in fact a closet Muslim Brother. But those who harbour such fears forget that the Brothers' conservative ideology, along with the beard, had become mainstream in Egypt long before the revolution.

Kandil has already said he will keep some ministers from the outgoing government. Few believe it is actually him calling the shots. It's out of the question that he will choose a new defence minister for example. That post will most likely be kept by the septuagenarian Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, who has been the not-so-much-behind-the scenes effective ruler of the country since the overthrow of Mubarak last year.

Many will be watching who gets picked to lead the second branch of the coercive machinery of the state, the interior ministry. If Kandil recycles an old police general, then Egypt will be firmly on track to reproduce the old policies that failed to solve its myriad problems, when they weren't directly contributing to them.

The young prime minister has made his career in Egypt's creaking public sector – hardly the credentials of someone to put the country on a path to "renaissance" or "nahda" which was Morsi's buzzword and election pledge. People who rise through the state bureaucracy are by nature yes-men functionaries, very conservative and far from dynamic. What Egypt needs now is the opposite of that.

Moreover, Kandil is set to continue the old Egyptian tradition of choosing a line-up of academics for his cabinet: professor of engineering for the ministry of industry, professor of medicine for the health ministry etc. It's an old and discredited practice from the era of Nasser, who didn't want politicians but technocrats who could carry out orders.

Commenting on this typically Egyptian phenomenon, writer and economist Galal Amin noted that while academics were reflective people, politicians were men of action, adding that academics who turned out to be good politicians were mediocre academics, bad at the subject for which they were specifically chosen to lead the ministry in question.

Choosing a man from the outgoing government to serve as his new prime minister raises once again the question of whether Morsi is actually free to rule.

The establishment has reluctantly allowed a Muslim Brother to take residence in the presidential palace – the first civilian to do so since the military appointed themselves the guardians of Egypt nearly 60 years ago. But in reality, he may never be allowed to exercise power.

Morsi has been shown on TV sitting next to the top brass attending one graduation ceremony for army cadets after another; holding meetings with officials discussing how to rid Cairo of its mountains of daily rubbish and how to solve its chronic traffic congestion.

But Egyptians are an impatient people, and have heard it all before. Jokes are already circulating about a president who's good at praying and preaching, but useless at everything else.

His choice of prime minister is once again a bitter reminder for those who supported the revolution that it is still far from complete, and will remain incomplete as long as the old nomenklatura in the army, the police and the top mandarins keep their chairs. Morsi cannot be the revolution's president and continue to rely on the old guard. Cohabitation Egyptian style will prove to be a recipe for, at best, crab walk; at worst, paralysis.

But there are those who believe that Morsi, far from being coerced into making certain choices, is pursuing a deliberate plan. He seems to think that they can rule Egypt without dismantling the old machinery – instead he wants to take command of it. If that is indeed what he is trying to do, he will have proven critics of the Muslim Brothers right: they have more in common with Mubarak's old ruling party, the now-dissolved NDP, than they are willing to admit