CAIRO: Egypt’s prime minister promised Thursday to set up an anti-corruption body and work to end a 30-year-emergency law to placate protesters demanding faster reforms.
In his first address after the shuffle, Prime Minister Essam Sharaf vowed to fulfill the demands of the protesters camped out in Cairo’s Tahrir Square since July 8.
The premier said he asked his ministers to prepare action plans with the “first objective of achieving the revolution’s goals and preserving its gains.”

The protesters “have a message, and there is no option but to deal with it, and we will deal with it,” he said.
The premier made his pledge in a televised statement hours after his new Cabinet was sworn-in, in a bid to mollify the demonstrators.
Roughly half of the ministers in the reshuffled Cabinet are new.
The new lineup was to take office Monday but the ceremony was delayed amid wrangling that led to Sharaf’s brief hospitalization with exhaustion.

Activists have rejected the new lineup, which retains several ministers they want sacked.
“This government does not in any shape express our aspirations for the revolution,” said Tareq al-Khouli, a leader of the April 6 movement and organizer of the sit-in.
According to a list published on MENA, several controversial ministers kept their posts, including two appointed under ousted president Hosni Mubarak – Electricity Minister Hassan Yunis and International Cooperation Minister Fayza Abul Naga.

But Mubarak’s environment minister, Maged George, the only remaining Coptic Christian in the Cabinet, was replaced by Maged Ilyas Ghattas, another Copt, according to MENA.
“We don’t understand why they are being so obstinate about keeping former party members, rather than replacing them with respectable people,” Khouli said, adding the sit-in would continue.

Activists have called for a mass demonstration Friday, dubbing it the “Decisive Friday,” while hard-line Islamist groups say they are organizing a counter-demonstration for “stability.”
The protesters wanted Sharaf to replace Justice Minister Abdel Aziz al-Gindi, whom they accuse of delaying trials of former regime officials, including Mubarak himself.

Mansur Essawy, the interior minister protesters wanted out, also kept his post.
New ministers have indicated their government would listen to activists’ demands, with the new foreign minister, Mohammad Kamel Amr, telling Al-Jazeera television it was a “government of the revolution.”
Deputy premier and public sector minister, Ali al-Silmi, told an Egyptian newspaper he wanted to end privatization, a policy for which Mubarak was praised by foreign investors but criticized at home.
“Enough privatization, right after the end of the former regime which aimed at dissolving the public sector,” Al-Masry al-Youm quoted Silmi as saying.

The Antiquities Ministry was dissolved after Sharaf’s first choice, Islamic relics expert Abdel Fatah al-Banna, came under fire shortly after his appointment was announced Monday.
Former state minister of antiquities Zahi Hawass, known for his trademark fedora hat and explosive temper, called the shuffle “a mess.” Hawass had been appointed to the newly created ministry in Mubarak’s final year in power.
“I don’t want to be involved in it,” he told AFP.
The Supreme Council of Antiquities, which oversees Egypt’s vast and lucrative collection of relics, would answer directly to the Cabinet, said MENA.

Tantawi, who served as Mubarak’s defense minister for two decades, tasked the new Cabinet with “quickly returning stability, calm and security and to confront any attempt to toy with the country’s security, it reported.
He also called on the Cabinet to prepare for parliamentary elections in November, and presidential elections, and to “scientifically plan for achieving the demands of the revolution.”