Egypt’s Parliament to vote on upcoming Cabinet reshuffle

CAIRO – 13 January 2017: Egypt’s House of Representatives will hold a plenary session on Sunday to vote on the upcoming cabinet reshuffle, few weeks after the cabinet duties were assigned to an acting Prime Minister.

The ministerial reshuffle comes in pursuance of Article 174 of the constitution which stipulates that the “President shall hold the cabinet reshuffle in consultation with the prime minister and with the approval of the House of Representatives by an absolute majority of the attendees of the house and no less than one third of its total members.”

The upcoming reshuffle could include six ministries’ portfolios such as agriculture, high education, local development, business sector, tourism and youth as consultation will be held with the Egyptian Parliament on the list of candidates’ names for these positions.

Chairman of General Organization for Physical Planning Assem Abdel-Hamid Al-Jazzar is a nominee for the Ministry of Housing while the Minister of Housing Mostafa Madbouli is likely to be dedicated only to the position of acting prime minister in the new reshuffle.

Meanwhile, Advisor to the Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Rania Al-Mashat might replace Minister of Tourism Yahia Rashid while Minister of Youth and Sports Khaled Abdel Aziz is a candidate for the position of minister of local development.

It is expected that the reshuffle conducted to the Cabinet of Prime Minister Sherif Ismail will be declared on either Sunday or Monday, according to high level sources.

The shuffle comes amid Ismail’s medical problems, which led him to travel to Germany to seek treatment there in November where he had undergone a surgery. Ismail’s incapacity led President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi to appoint Madbouli in November 2017 as acting prime minister to fulfill the duties of Ismail’s role until his recovery.

This is the third time that Ismail’s Cabinet undergoes a reshuffle since he assumed office on September 12, 2015; a reshuffle previously took place in 2016 and the other in 2017.

In the 2017 reshuffle, the new ministers include Abdel-Moneim Abdel-Wadoud as minister of agriculture and land reclamation; Omar Arafa as minister of legal and parliamentary affairs; Ali Meselhy, the former minister of social solidarity in the era of Hosni Mubarak and head of the parliamentary Economic Committee, as minister of supply and internal trade; Mohamed Zein el-Abidin as minister of local development; Hala al-Saeed as minister of planning and administrative reform; Khaled Abdel Ghaffar as minister of higher education and scientific research; Tarek Jalal as minister of education; and Hesham Arafat as minister of transportation and communication. The ministries of investment and international cooperation were merged together and headed by Minister Sahar Nasr.