[Arab News] Thursday's news of the resignation of the Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq -- who was appointed by Hosni Mubarak in a failed attempt to quiet the anti-government protests -- has been welcomed by Egyptian expatriates in the Kingdom.Mubarak stepped down Feb. 11 and the military took control of the country, but Shafiq remained in office at the head of a caretaker government.
A brief statement posted on the military's official website said it had chosen former Transport Minister Essam Sharaf as the new prime minister and asked him to form a new caretaker Cabinet to run the government throughout a transition back to civilian rule.
Ayman Abdul Bari, a young Egyptian journalist working in Soddy Arabia said Shafiq's resignation marks the end of the age of corrupt dictatorship and beginning of a new epoch of freedom and human values in the political history of Egypt.
"Shafiq's resignation is not a voluntary act. It is his submission to the wishes of the young revolutionists that no remnant of the old regime should remain in the new system. All of them should quit the new Egyptian political arena," Abdul Bari told Arab News.
He added that Shafiq was a choice pick of Mubarak and because of that he should not have been allowed to stick around under any pretext.
"If he remained in power, he would most probably help the old elements to intrude into the midst of the revolutionists and dilute the noble goals of the revolution," he added.
Jeddah-based pharmacist Muhammad Abdul Salam Al-Bardeesi said Shafiq's resignation has removed all obstacles in purging the government of the old guard. "Personally I believe that every element fostered by the corrupt Mubarak government should go and only then would the Jan. 25 revolution be complete," he said.
Egyptian expat Saeed Al-Baraee, who teaches in a Saudi private school, said Shafiq's resignation would make investigations into corrupt officials easy. Shafiq was not free from corruption charges, he added.
"For instance, Shafiq -- in his capacity as the civil aviation minister -- awarded the contract for work at Cairo International Airport to contractors who were close to the former president's family," he said.
Ridwan Qanawi, who is from Upper Egypt, wondered how Shafiq could be considered a clean politician as he had close connections with Mubarak and his sons on one hand and with some notoriously corrupt bureaucrats and businessmen on the other.
An engineer by profession, Sharaf served in the Cabinet for 18 months between 2004 and the end of 2005. He visited the anti-Mubarak protesters in Cairo's central Tahrir Square, the uprising's epicenter, something that endeared him to the youth groups behind the opposition movement.