King v. Cabinet

Since the death in 1936 of Egypt's corpulent King Fuad, the eyes of Egyptian jellaheen have watched the career of his successor-son, 18-year-old King Farouk I. On returning to Egypt to be crowned, the young King chose a commoner as his intended bride, pert little 16-year-old Sasi Naz Zulfikar, daughter of a palace lady-in-waiting, bestowed on her the name Farida, meaning "The Only One." Bickering resulted in the postponement of the King's marriage until Feb. 11. Bickering last week got Farouk into much deeper hot water.

With fine oriental flair old King Fuad managed, with British assistance, to maintain himself in power without kowtowing to Egypt's majority Wafdist party. As his royal adviser toward the end of his rule, he kept an anti-Wafdist, Ali Maher Pasha. Under the new King, Ali Maher was appointed to the Senate and Premier Mustafa Nahas Pasha and his Wafdists hoped they could maintain a monopoly as bestowers of royal advice. Two months ago strong-willed Farouk, without ado, plucked Ali Maher from the Senate and reinstalled him as royal adviser. Premier Nahas protested volubly. Wafdist Blue-shirts, a semimilitary student branch of the party, clashed with pro-Farouk student groups in the streets of Cairo. Farouk remained adamant.

Fortnight ago King and Cabinet clashed again as Premier Nahas' majority Wafdists picked a successor for Ali Maher's vacated Senate seat. Farouk refused to confirm the Cabinet's selection and the thwarted Premier again backed down, agreed to nominate a candidate neutral in the controversy. Last week the bickering came to a head with both King and Cabinet in a bellicose mood. The Cabinet sent Farouk a flat demand that he sign a bill recently passed by Parliament allowing the Premier to distribute, without accounting for, some $195,000 in secret funds for suppression of foreign propaganda, etc.

Such funds are appropriated by most European governments, but Farouk was suspicious that the money was intended for the coffers of Premier Nahas' Wafdist & Blueshirt organizations. Again Farouk balked. Adviser Maher acted for him, accepted a compromise sum of $70,000. Then the King tried his hand with an ultimatum. Anxious to get rid of the armed Blueshirts. Farouk gave his Cabinet an overnight choice: dissolve the organization or hand in their resignations as Ministers. At the last minute, Premier Nahas came forward with a compromise:

He would transform the quasi-military Blueshirts into a sports and cultural group. The young King, counseled by Adviser Ali Maher, held out for unconditional dissolution and partisans of Farouk took to the streets to fight it out with adherents of Premier Nahas and the Wafdists. At week's end both combatants were stubbornly holding out on a decision as 11,000 pro-Farouk students at El-Azhar university, chief Moslem theological school, went on a mass sit-down strike to back up the young monarch.

If Premier Nahas again bows to the young King Farouk may be expected to press his advantage to push through his imperious desire to name one-third of the Senate himself, instead of merely confirming the hand-picked appointees of the Premier and Cabinet who hitherto have filled the 53 appointive Senate seats. If & when his youthful Majesty undertakes to carry out this idea Egyptians will have something bigger. & better to bicker over.

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