Containing crisis between parliament, Ganzouri gov’t

Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri Cairo – Akram Ali Egypt’s state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper revealed on Tuesday that talks succeeded between parliamentary leaders, the government of Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri, and Egypt’s ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) on containing the crisis of withdrawing confidence of the government.
According to the Egyptian daily, the crisis had been raised on Sunday parliamentary session, when Ganzouri’s representative decided not to attend the night session.
Al-Ahram quoted parliamentary sources saying that closed meeting had been held on Sunday evening between People’s Assembly’s leaders and SCAF’s leaders to discuss the government crisis, in which all parties agreed on calming the situation and wait until the end of the transitional period, which will end during three months.
During Sunday day-session the majority of MPs in the People's Assembly have given the thumbs up to putting al-Ganzouri's government to a vote of confidence.
The Assembly's decision on Sunday came in the wake of stormy debates on the lifting of a travel ban on Americans accused of illegal political activities in Egypt, also known as NGO workers’ case.
Al-Ganzouri apologised for not attending this session; he has written a letter to the Parliament Speaker asking him to postpone a summons against him in relation to ongoing investigations into the foreign NGO controversy.
A group of al-Ganzouri's ministers, however, did attend Sunday's parliament session to address MPs' questions on the case.
Fayza Aboul Naga, minister of international cooperation who initiated the case against the NGOs, attended the parliament session along with Mohamed Ateya, minister of parliament affairs, and Minister of Justice Adel Abdel-Hamid.
Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) MPs attacked al-Ganzouri, accusing his government of showing no respect for the People's Assembly.
On Sunday evening session, People’s Assembly’s Speaker Saad al-Katatny cancelled the session to protest the absence of a representative of al-Ganzouri’s government.
“If the representative does not show up tomorrow, we will take action,” Katatny said, accusing the government of deliberately disrupting Parliament’s agenda.
According to the Constitutional Declaration approved in a public referendum on March 19, 2011, SCAF has the supreme right of dismissing governments.
Muslim Brotherhood legal sources said that the parliament can’t dismiss the government without a decision from the SCAF, however, the FJP’s senior official Ahmed Abu Baraka said that the parliament has the right to dismiss the government without SCAF’s confirmation.