Whaddya know!

By Magdi Mehanna

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Although Prime Minister Atef Ebeid is the country's top executive next to the president and as such a likely person to run the country in the president's absence, his selection as acting president was nonetheless a surprise. Only 24 hours before, everyone expected Ebeid to be relieved of his post in the upcoming reshuffle.

This surprise may not be the last. It is hard to gauge the future as everything is shrouded in secrecy. But the president's sudden trip to Germany for medical purposes, followed by Ebeid's appointment as acting president, followed by rumours that the information minister post will be cancelled and that Safwat El-Sherif will become speaker for the Shura Council, all give the impression that political reform may not be far behind.

The time for change has come by sheer inertia. The call for change has been rejected in the past and postponed repeatedly, for no good reason. Some expect the coming changes to encompass the form and essence of the regime. Change is a popular demand. Even those who rejected change in the past now cannot stand in its way, although they are trying hard to rob it of all meaning.

The recipe of reform is known to all; it has been spelled out in the Alexandria document. All we need to do is to implement it. Reform has to involve people, policies and mechanisms; a change of faces and roles will necessarily lead to a change in policy. This is particularly true for the cancellation of the information minister post. It is all about the will to change. Until recently, people assumed that no such will exists. It seems, however, now that big surprises are on the way.

This week's Soapbox speaker is former co editor-in-Chief of Al-Wafd newspaper