Meet Egypt's new finance man: Can el-Beblawi move the economy beyond military constraints?

Egypt’s Prime Minister Essam Sharaf’s new cabinet is expected to take the oath of office on Monday after a reshuffle that protesters said had partially satisfied their demands for deeper political and economic reforms.

A core of protesters, who have camped out in Cairo’s Tahrir Square since July 8, said they wanted further measures, including a quicker trial of Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted as president on February 11 in a popular uprising.

Mubarak’s lawyer said the former president, who has been in a hospital in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh since April, had slipped into coma, but hospital officials and the deputy health minister denied the report.
Protesters in Tahrir, the centre of uprising, unfurled a huge banner on Sunday that read: “Mubarak must stand trial.”

He is due to appear in court on Aug. 3 charged with abuse of power and killing of protesters. Many Egyptians think the military wants to find ways to avoid humiliating their former commander in public.

THE OLD NEW FINANCE MINISTER
Among the new ministers is 74-year-old Hazem el-Beblawi, an adviser at the Abu Dhabi-based Arab Monetary Fund, who replaces Finance Minister Samir Radwan.

Radwan told Reuters the policy-making situation had become “confused” and he believed it best to “leave the way for somebody to handle it in a consistent and coherent manner”.

“People don’t know what they want. Do they want increased expenditure and no borrowing from abroad? Everybody has suddenly become an expert on financial policy. That is not an atmosphere conducive to efficient work,” Radwan said.