Egypt Seeks $3.2 Billion Loan From I.M.F. CAIRO - Egypt's military rulers asked the International Monetary Fund on Monday for a $3.2 billion loan that they had previously rejected, bowing to the realities of a worsening economy nearly a year after the exit of the strongman Hosni Mubarak. Egyptian officials said they might ask for even more. "It may increase," Fayza Abul Naga, minister of planning and international cooperation, said at a news conference with a visiting delegation from the fund. Also Monday, the Islamist party founded by the Muslim Brotherhood said that as the dominant bloc in the new Parliament, it would appoint its secretary general as the body's speaker. The loan request to the International Monetary Fund was essentially the same as the package that Egyptian officials had negotiated last spring, people familiar with the terms said. At the time, the military-led government had abruptly decided that debts to the I.M.F. could impose conditions that the military rulers considered an infringement on Egyptian sovereignty. Since then, however, Egypt's economy has continued to suffer from the collapse of tourism and foreign investment amid the unrest and uncertainty of the military-led transition after the ouster of Mr. Mubarak in February. Egypt's reserves of foreign currency have fallen from a peak of about $36 billion before the revolution to about $10 billion, after certain obligations, enough to cover just two months of imports. Egypt's currency has come under mounting pressure - economists say further devaluation may be almost inevitable - and a steep drop in the exchange rate could bring painful inflation and more social unrest. Doubts about the solvency of the Egyptian government have made it increasingly difficult for the government to borrow from private sources to cover growing debts. To allay fears of a currency collapse, the military government recently elected to sell bonds payable in American dollars rather Egyptian pounds, in effect placing a heavy bet that it could avoid default. The International Monetary Fund loan is considered a crucial financial lifeline that will reassure Western and Arab donors that their pledges of aid will not go to waste, merely delaying an economic collapse. The meetings about the loan come amid a sudden fuel shortage here that is confounding consumers and economists alike. There have been long lines for gasoline at pumps around the country, and many filling stations have run dry early in the day. But officials at the Ministry of Petroleum, which controls deliveries of gasoline and sets the artificially low prices, insist that the supply is adequate to meet demand and that no price change is planned. In state-run media, the officials have suggested that the shortage is resulting from smuggling or hoarding ahead of a feared price increase. Some have speculated that the shortages may be an effort to lay the groundwork for a gasoline price increase, potentially tied to the I.M.F. loan. Egypt, which exports natural gas and other fuel, subsidizes domestic energy prices at a cost of as much as 10 percent of its gross domestic product, giving a lopsided benefit to the wealthy, who use the most energy. Most Egyptians consider the energy subsidies a cherished right, but economists have long warned that they are increasingly untenable; many economists say that as part of any loan, the I.M.F. would probably urge Egypt to rein in the practice. Officials in the fund's delegation, led by its Middle East director, Masood Ahmed, said Monday that after hearing the government's plans, they would return to Washington to review the proposed loan and make a decision by the end of the month. The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party said Monday that it had agreed with other parties to pick its secretary general, Mohamed Saad el-Katatni, as speaker of Parliament. The party has won at least 46 percent of the seats so far, with only a few seats left to be decided. Its leaders said that they had agreed to share committee positions and other posts with smaller parties, but it is not clear how they will be distributed. Some news reports said the Freedom and Justice Party had agreed to give deputy speaker posts to the second and third largest parties, the ultraconservative Islamist party Al Nour and the liberal Wafd Party. But the reports indicated that it might be a temporary arrangement to organize the start of the Parliament session.