Egypt's Presdient appoints El-Ganzoury as advisor

Kamal El-Ganzoury, former Egypt's Prime Minister and Mohamed Morsy's current advisor

According to Egyptian state TV, Egypt's President Mohamed Morsy has appointed the former Prime Minister Kamal El-Ganzoury as his advisor. The names of the memebers of the presidential team have to be officially announced today, on Thursday, together with the announcement of the Egypt's new government.

Kamal El-Ganzoury (79) was born in Garwan, town in Bagor City in Menoufiya. He obtained a PhD at University of Michigan in USA and in 1959 he began his teaching career at the Egyptian universities and training institutes. Kamal El-Ganzoury is economist.

Kamal El-Ganzoury and Hussein Tantawy, head of SCAF

He began his political career serving as a board member of the Sadat Academy of the Administrative Sciences (1962-1967) and in 1968 he became an economic advisor for the Arab Bank of Economic Development in Africa. Later Kamal El-Ganzoury served as advisor to the President Anwar Sadat. In 1974 he became an undersecretary of the Planning Minister and kept this post till 1975. Next year he was appointed as a governor of New Valley State and later the governor of Beni Suef. After resigning from the post of governor El-Ganzoury became a Director of the National Planning Institute (1977). Kamal El-Ganzoury also served in the governments under Hosni Mubarak, he was Minister of Planning (1982) and later he became a Minister of International Cooperation (1984). From 1986 till 1996 El-Ganzoury served as a Deputy Prime Minister.

In January 1996 Hosni Mubarak appointed Kamal El-Ganzoury as a Prime Minister. El-Ganzoury succeeded Atef Sedky and served on this post till his dismissal in 1999. When El-Ganzoury’s Cabinet was appointed it had the possibility to work on the level that was really unprecedented for Egypt’s modern history. Hundreds of the new laws were declared during this period, and some of them made a great change in Egypt. Kamal El-Ganzoury was working with a few great projects, which were tasked with developing Egypt. There were attempts to move Egypt from the valley of the Nile River developing the new lands away from the valley to live. He is an author of a Plan of development for Egypt till 2017. The poverty ratio in Egypt was also reduced during the time of his government. El-Ganzoury also improved Egypt’s relationships with International Bank through the International Monetary Fund. But many of his projects were abandoned after his dismissal from office in 1999.

Kamal El-Ganzoury and Mohamed Morsy, Egypt's President

After his dismissal Kamal El-Ganzoury stayed away from media, while some official figures were claiming he didn’t make anything good for Egypt, so his Development plan and other projects were simply neglected by the next governments. But El-Ganzoury had a good reputation among the average Egyptians, as they felt the developments and positive changes happened during his governing. Later the government made a number of investigations regarding the times when he was Prime Minsiter, and the sources form NDP (National Democratic Party) cleared that he was even kept under the house arrest, but those investigations led to nothing and it was strange and shocking for the simple people in Egypt.

Then Kamal El-Ganzoury appeared again after 11 years of silence when the January 25 Revolution broke out and Hosni Mubarak stepped down. El-Ganzoury said then that this is the new day and the beginning of the new era in Egypt and there is no way back. Later there were some reports that he will possibly run for presidency, there were a huge groups supporting him, the political party Al-Wafd even stated that they will back him up as their presidential candidate, but El-Ganzoury himself didn’t make any statements regarding his possible presidential candidacy.

After Essam Sharaf resigned from his Prime Minister post in November 2011, Kamal El-Ganzoury was appointed by the SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) as Egypt’s new Prime Minister and was tasked with the forming of the new Cabinet. El-Ganzoury selected the members for his Cabinet which was called Salvation Government, and on 7 December 2011 he and his new Cabinet were sworn in. SCAF then transferred to the new Cabinet all the presidential powers except of the affairs related to judiciary and military. Kamal El-Hanzoury’s government resigned on 26 June 2012 after Mohamed Morsy became the new President.