Following the tragic train accident at Ayyat, Giza, which left 18 dead and 36 injured and was the result of what was termed “human error”, Transportation Minister Mohamed Lutfi Mansour tendered his resignation. His was not the first resignation of its kind; former minister Ibrahim al-Dumeiri resigned in February 2002 in the aftermath of a tragic train fire that killed some 360 passengers.
Not the answer
Two days before Mansour resigned he had insisted he would not step down. Even though he admitted he was politically responsible for the railway sector, he told viewers on the TV talk show ++al-Beit Beitak++: “I will not relinquish my responsibility for modernising the railway system in Egypt,”
This gave rise to rampant speculation that he had in fact been dismissed from office by President Mubarak, but the move was made to look like a resignation to save him face. MP Saad Abboud commented that we, as Egyptians, do not possess the culture of publicly admitting mistakes and accepting the consequences.
Some on the political field believe the move was made to give the government a better image. “The regime wished to give the impression that no-one was above the law or beyond accountability, not even a minister,” the political writer Soliman Gouda told Watani. “But resignations are not the answer,” he said. “In 2002 Dumeiri resigned following the train fire, but the railway sector is still riddled with problems. So even if the government takes on the political responsibility of the matter, it is time to take to account the top officials of the railway sector.”
‘Resignation accepted’
Egyptian 20th and 21st century history reports several incidents of resignation of top officials. Especially before the 1952 Revolution, resignations were not seen as an embarrassment for the government or the person who resigned. The writer and chronicler Mohamed al-Gawadi cites the resignation of three ministers in protest against government policies. This practically broke the coalition government of then premier Mustafa al-Nahhas, leading the king to dismiss the government.
During the years when Gamal Abdel-Nasser was president, resignation of top officials was regarded as an embarrassment to the Revolution regime. The attitude has its roots in the 1954 resignation Egypt’s first president Mohamed Naguib on grounds of what he termed the impossibility of his assuming responsibility for the manner in which the country was being ruled [by the Revolutionary Council]. The resignation was officially claimed as a dismissal and, in its wake, several ministers—commonly known as the “1954 Group”—also resigned. After that, Gawadi says, there were no ‘resignations’ reported, only ‘acceptance of resignations’.
Most of the officers who had been key figures in the Revolution thus dropped out of the ruling regime, one by one, the resignations accepted. Kamal Eddin Hussein, Abdel-Latif al-Bughdadi, and Zakariya Moheiddin all left following differences with Nasser. But the most famous resignation came from Education Minister Mohamed Helmy Murad in the 1960s who publicly differed with Nasser and promptly resigned, but Nasser declared he had dismissed Murad.
Tempestuous
The rule of President Anwar al-Sadat (1970 – 1981) began on a rather tempestuous note when he sensed the ineptness of Soviet support for Egypt which was then in a state of war with Israel. Accordingly, he expelled the Soviets—who had held sway over the country during the Nasser years—from Egypt. Several of Sadat’s ministers tendered a collective resignation in order to embarrass him in 15 May 1971, upon which he promptly had them all arrested in what he came to term the “correction movement”.
The peace agreement with Israel in 1979 prompted two of Egypt’s then foreign ministers—Ismail Fahmy and Mohamed Kamel to resign in protest.
Also during the Sadat years Heath Minister Ibrahim Badran resigned as a result of his rejection of the interference of the president and premier in the decisions he took to run his ministry. Minister of State for Rural and Industrial Communities Abdel-Aziz Hussein resigned to protest his exclusion from a meeting between the president and a key foreign investor.
Public regret
The resignation which caused by far the most public regret, however, was that of Interior Minister Ahmed Rushdy in 1986. Rushdy was widely respected for his untiring efforts to enforce law and discipline in the country. He was famous for his surprise visits incognito to various spots, upon which he would go back to his office and issue orders that would serve to implement safety and security to that spot. His measures to battle corruption managed to bring to life the motto of the Egyptian Police: “The Police is in the service of the people”.
Rushdy’s term as Interior Minister came to an abrupt end, however, when he resigned following the riots which overran Cairo and Giza by the Central Security junior army recruits in 1986 to protest a year-long extension in their recruitment. Rushdy’s resignation was promptly accepted by President Mubarak, but many Egyptians recall him as an unforgettable figure of an Interior Minister.