POLI 369 Chapter 8

The River Nile gave birth to Egypt and its civilization. Its rich silt deposits and abundance of water began to nourish settlements along its banks as rainfall nearly vanished following the last ice age. A remarkable civilization emerged by 3000 BCE whose predominant social feature was a peasant-tributary taxation system from which kings appropriated an enormous surplus. The tributary system evolved into a highly centralized form of government. Egypt made great strides in architecture and in science and thus developed into a highly sophisticated culture. During the Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, and Arab empires, Egypt was reduced to a province whose agricultural surplus, which had once supported the pharaonic ruling class, was now appropriated by foreign courts. Then, between the tenth and sixteenth centuries, Tulunid, Fatimid, Ayyubid, and Mamluk rulers based in Egypt (though not indigenous to the country) once again benefited from the profits that accrued from the southern trade route through the Red Sea, which supplemented the revenue from the countryside and supported growing urban centers. In the towns, wage labor and various forms of mercantilism developed, along with an increasing number of artisan guilds. Arabic literature flourished just as this cultural form tends to thrive in most sedentary cultures. Nevertheless, with European powers (starting with Portugal) taking control of the Indian Ocean trade route and with the Ottoman conquest in 1517, Egypt lost its economic and literary prominence. The countryside, in turn, grew increasingly impoverished, with the ruling class maintaining itself by squeezing the peasants even harder.¹ 

The emergence of modern Egypt 

In 1798, General Napoleon Bonaparte invaded the Ottoman province of Egypt, intending to use the territory as a base from which to threaten the British Empire by attacking India. His plan was unsuccessful, and Bonaparte departed, leaving behind an occupying French army, which in 1801 was compelled to withdraw by the collaborating Turkish and British forces. When the British departed in 1803, Muhammad ‘Ali, an Albanian junior officer, was left in control of several thousand Albanian and Bosnian troops. He competed for power with four groups: The Ulama, which he was able to co-opt; the Turkish garrison, which he was successful in controlling; the Ottoman governor, whom he deposed with the help of the Ulama; and various warring factions of Mamluks, that he soon eliminated. Thus he neutralized all opposition to his rule, becoming Wali (governor) of Egypt in 1805, a position he held until his death in 1849, and earning the designation of being the founder of modern Egypt. However, he recognized that the socio-economic structure was incapable of sustaining comprehensive reforms that would combine European science and technology with a revived Arab–Egyptian heritage. Accordingly, Muhammad ‘Ali launched a state-driven program in which his primary objectives were to build a modern industrial infrastructure, promote economic diversification, develop a strong national army, and create a modern state bureaucracy. Resources were drawn from taxes on a peasantry composed of small landholding families. The surplus was used to finance factories, irrigation, and the expansion of agriculture, transportation, education, and the army. In the political arena, he set up three-tier political councils with members to be elected without religious or racial discrimination.² It is indeed astonishing how this unlettered officer was able to modernize Egypt to the extent that state workshops and factories employed tens of thousands of workers producing steam engines, cannons, iron, and more cotton goods than most European countries. All of this was achieved with the adoption of foreign technology.³ 

Muhammad ‘Ali’s vision of a modern, powerful, and interdependent Egypt extended to territories his army conquered in a campaign in the Arabian Peninsula against the Wahhabis in 1828 and in Greater Syria in 1836. The expansion of his power into these regions was seen as a serious threat to Britain’s trade interests and revived London’s sense of urgency about the region that Bonaparte’s invasion of Egypt had initially roused.⁴ Some argue that in time, Egypt could have become an auto-centric capitalist power because Muhammad ‘Ali’s modern reforms were quite similar to those of Japan’s late-nineteenth-century Meiji restoration and Russia’s Peter the Great more than a century earlier.⁵ Egypt’s arrested development can be traced to forces that Japan did not face. The first was the proximity of Egypt to Europe and the threat that Egypt apparently posed to Britain’s strategic and economic interests. This apprehension about Egypt’s intentions culminated in the Anglo-Ottoman military campaign of 1840, which defused Muhammad ‘Ali’s ambitions. Moreover, it subjected the country to terms the Ottomans had already accepted in the Anglo–Ottoman Commercial Treaty of 1838 and ended up flooding the country with foreign imported goods while bestowing extrajudicial privileges on foreigners. The second force was that local social conditions had not sufficiently matured, meaning that there was no significant Egyptian middle class or intelligentsia. Furthermore, Muhammad ‘Ali’s successors (1849–82) were much less capable than he, and they abandoned his economic policy of self-reliance in the hope of Europeanizing Egypt with European capital. This, however, ultimately turned the country into a cotton plantation for Lancashire and integrated it into the world markets by way of lopsided development.⁶ As a consequence, the country fell into ruinous debt that resulted in the imposition of the European Debt Commission, known as the Dual Control in 1876. The Commission acquired such financial and economic powers that it was described as “veiled colonial administration.”⁷ In this context, the ruling class, with the help of the state, seized land and transformed itself into a class of agrarian capitalists or landowners whose prosperity was now dependent on global markets. 

Egypt was thus polarized between the landed aristocracy and the urban Third Estate, which consisted of clerks, artisans, traditional merchants, administrators, and intellectuals, along with the rural equivalent of village notables. Together, they formed the mainstay of a rekindled renaissance seen in an adaptation to cultural and technical innovation and in a renewal of a generally critical spirit, which, in the environment of imperial economic domination and the expansion of a modern education system, awakened a spirit of nationalism and patriotism that came to be symbolized by the 1880s movement led by Col. Ahmed Urabi. However, the Third Estate failed to develop sufficiently along capitalist lines and remained shackled by a pre-capitalist culture clinging desperately to tradition in an attempt to preserve its identity.⁸ 

Urabi was an army officer from a peasant background, and a symbol of Egyptian discontent with the ever increasing European influence in his country. In May 1880, he presented a petition to the government in an attempt to redress several grievances. He was immediately arrested but then freed in an army revolt and then installed as minister of war. Urabi’s followers in the National Party gained control of Parliament and eventually forced Ismail’s successor, Tawfik, the sixth ruler in the line from Mohammed ‘Ali, to create a constitution. The party then drew up a moderate reform program. In 1882, however, Britain and France protested the formation of a constitutional government. The British government claimed that “no satisfactory or durable arrangement of the Egyptian crisis was possible without the removal of Urabi.” It systematically denounced his regime as an example of military despotism and foretold dire consequences for Egypt. Subsequently, Britain presented two ultimatums to the Egyptian government. When both were rejected, the British invaded Egypt and on July 11, 1882, defeated Urabi’s forces and the nationalist movement in the battle of Tel el-Kabir, north of Cairo. Declaring that they had no intention of staying longer than necessary to restore financial stability and good government, the British installed themselves as the true power in Egypt and imposed their rule for 72 years.⁹ 

British occupation 

British rule in Egypt was strict. For 72 years, political power was a tug of war between the ruler, the British proconsul (or high commissioner), and Egyptian politicians. As a general rule, the British opposed national demands and only grudgingly gave way under pressure. A case in point is that of the third British proconsul, Lord Kitchener, who in 1913 allowed an Egyptian legislative council while continuing to maintain control. The British reorganized Egypt’s administration and reduced its debt, but such improvements were made at a sacrifice. Social and political problems were almost entirely ignored, as was the development of an educational infrastructure. The British refusal to allow greater self-government led much of the nationalist movement to develop independently. This was especially true after Khedive Tawfik was succeeded by Abbas Hilmi II, who allied himself with the nationalist forces against the British. Eventually he was deposed, and the eldest member of the line, the malleable Hussein Kamel, was appointed sultan in 1914, as Britain – ending Egypt’s formal status as part of the Ottoman Empire – declared it a British protectorate. Progress on institutional development was arrested. 

Between 1900 and the outbreak of World War I, the Third Estate (in this context, the Egyptian political elite) was systematically eliminated, both politically and economically, and replaced with petty bureaucrats who unquestioningly accepted foreign domination. The landed aristocracy gradually became agro-capitalists and then, from 1919 onward, segued into commercial and industrial business elites. The working class eked out a bare existence, leaving the rest of the population to struggle for basics. The reaction of the intelligentsia, represented by Mustafa Kamel and Mohammad Farid, who launched the National Party, was to appeal to the sympathies of European public opinion. When the nation rose in revolt in 1919, the National Party withered away, giving way to the rise of more revolutionary groups. The emerging rural landowning middle class, represented by the Ummah Party, was ideologically conservative, sharing the aristocracy’s fear of a revolt from the landless peasantry and so supported the British administration.10 

During World War I, Egypt served as a military base. Labor was conscripted and substantial numbers of British forces (whose arrogance and ethnocentrism antagonized the native population) were brought into Egypt. The British were able to pay higher prices for commodities, but rampant inflation ensued. Restrictions on the production of cotton were imposed, and confiscated crops were sold at huge profits. Thus, all levels of Egyptian society grew embittered toward the British. However, nationalist leaders were determined to hold their forces in check while the war lasted. Two days after the armistice, Sa’ad Zaghlul, a prominent nationalist and his followers formed the Egyptian delegation (Wafd) to present a demand for independence to the British proconsul, Sir Reginald Wingate. Although Win-gate urged his government to allow Zaghlul to proceed to London, permission to hear the Egyptian demands was refused. This gave rise to a popular revolt in 1919 throughout Egypt. In response, the British authorities were forced to allow the Egyptians to attend the Paris Peace Conference, but Zaghlul’s delegation failed to secure Egyptian independence, and the other powers recognized the British protectorate. 

The road to independence 

Despite Zaghlul’s failure in Paris, the British decided to take steps to redress Anglo-Egyptian antagonisms and drew up a treaty of alliance with Egypt in 1920 to replace the protectorate. Both Zaghlul and the Egyptian people rejected the treaty, a thinly veiled continuation of British occupation. The British deported Zaghlul, anticipating that he would agitate against any treaty. In March 1922, the British unilaterally terminated the protectorate. In the same year, Egypt was granted “formal” independence as Britain agreed to grant Egypt a kind of self-rule in which Egyptians were given responsibility over civil administration and local governance, while the British reserved for themselves communications, defense, and the protection of foreign nationals. In 1923, the first Egyptian constitution after independence was adopted, establishing a partially democratic parliamentary system. It designated the people as the source of all power and affirmed many important democratic principles and a wide range of civil liberties. In addition, the Constitution recognized two main authorities representing the government structure, namely the legislative and executive authorities, and emphasized the division of powers between the two. Freedom of the press was also granted. Egypt remained a monarchy under King Ahmad Fouad I, but Britain continued to hold most of the real power.11 As for the “democratic” side of the regime, it is important to point out that the poor – notably in the countryside – typically were in the hands of local notables, landlords in particular, on whom they were dependent and for whose candidates they blindly voted; in effect, this sort of patron–client relationship transforms free elections into a method of consolidating oligarchical rule. 

Between 1919 and 1935, there were 20 governments and eight rounds of negotiations during which the Egyptians tried to reduce British control. In 1936, Britain, fearing the Italian threat from Libya and Ethiopia and the looming war in Europe, compromised, and an Anglo–Egyptian Treaty, intended to be of 20 years duration, was concluded. The treaty granted Egypt a substantial degree of independence while Britain retained control of the Suez Canal as well as the right to station troops there.12 

At the beginning of World War II, Egypt was once again turned into a British base of operations. Although the upper echelon of Egyptian society prospered as a result of 200–300 percent appreciation in the value of land and buildings, the masses suffered severe deprivation, analogous to their experiences in World War I because wholesale commodity prices shot up 330 percent between 1939 and 1944. In the meantime, the British took drastic measures to keep Egypt neutral. Axis sympathizers were purged from the government, the palace was barricaded, and Fouad’s successor, Farouk, was forced to hand over the reigns of government to Mustafa al-Nahhas, who as leader of the Wafd Party was popularly perceived as being a representative of the people and able to handle a turbulent national situation during the war. The Wafd was ousted from power at the end of the war, and a long period of domestic instability and disquiet began, capped by Egyptian demands for a revision of the Anglo–Egyptian Treaty of 1936. To be sure, the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 drastically altered Egypt’s perception of Britain because Egyptians considered Britain to be responsible for its creation. In 1948, Egyptian troops participated in the Palestine war. The poor performance of its army against Zionist forces, as well as revelations of corrupt government practices, humiliated the Egyptian people, including the junior army officers. Against this background of unease and anguish, the Wafd Party temporarily regained power following elections in 1950. On October 8, 1951, the Parliament unilaterally abrogated the 1936 Anglo–Egyptian Treaty and declared Farouk king of Egypt and Sudan, thereby also asserting Egypt’s claim to the latter, which technically had been under joint Anglo-Egyptian rule since 1899. 

The abrogation of the treaty was of inestimable political significance. The political institutions of the regime rested on a delicate balance of cooperation between the British and the Palace against the national popular movement, represented by the Wafd Party. The British presence in the Suez Canal was legal, based on the terms of a treaty signed earlier by a Wafdist government. The new document of abrogation, agreed to by both the Wafd and the king, unilaterally broke the alliance with Britain. The Wafd, historically had adopted a tactic of peaceful struggle toward independence and democracy but changed its strategy by embracing popular armed struggle. This may explain why, after declaring the abrogation of the Anglo–Egyptian Treaty in the Parliament, Mustafa al-Nahhas declared that “The government has done its duty; the decision is now for the people.”13 Hostilities broke out between Egyptians and the British authorities on October 13, 1951. On January 25, 1952, 43 Egyptian policemen were killed during a British attack on the police barracks of Ismailia. Riots erupted in Cairo on Black Saturday, January 26, 1952, and most of the foreign quarter was burned. 

Between October 1951 and Black Saturday, all socio-economic strata, political organizations, professional societies, and segments of the rural centers joined together in a popular uprising. For example, on November 14, demonstrators in Cairo were estimated to number one million. The Socialist, Communist, and Wafd press launched daily attacks on the Palace and on British imperialism, urging the people to bring down the regime.¹⁴ Spontaneous attempts to organize a reformist “national front” to include national political movements, such as the Wafd, the National Party, the Socialist Party, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim Youth, and others were undertaken as early as October 20.¹⁵ The period from late 1951 to the launch of the coup d’état on July 23 of the following year was a period of widespread militant radicalization in opposition to monarchical despotism and the British use of naked force. On January 27, the king removed the Wafd from office and asked the pro-Palace Ali Maher to form a new government. This failed.¹⁶ Another government was formed and led by Najib al-Hilali. He suspended the Constitution, censored the press, and exercised extrajudicial power. However, al-Hilali was forced to resign in late June.¹⁷ The political paralysis continued for 4 days while tensions mounted. The king then appointed one of his most trusted aides, Hussein Serry, to form a pro-Palace government on July 2, but this government, too, was received with popular scorn.¹⁸ The Palace then attempted to impose its will on a highly rebellious population utilizing the only remaining force at its disposal: the army and the state security police. 

In sum, popular opposition after World War II consisted of (1) open organizations, supported by large segments of society; (2) articulated platforms of ideology; and (3) widespread political mobilization of the large middle class. Both the salaried and self-employed of the middle classes are of significant political importance because they make up the workforce of the educational system and the mass media. Furthermore, changes at the international level during the same period had major repercussions on Egypt. As a result of World War II, both Britain and France were financially exhausted, and their imperial status was in decline, making way for rivalry between neocolonial superpowers (the USSR and the United States). The United States strove to contain the rising Soviet influence and to consolidate its position as the sole superpower. It was the era of Pax Americana, reinforcing the incorporation of the Middle East into western capitalist markets. 

As early as January 1951, the Egyptian daily, Al-Gomhour al-Misri, reported that the American embassy in Cairo had informed the US State Department of anti-American demonstrations staged by Communist groups. The paper also reported that there was a plan to create an anti-Communist office staffed by Anglo-Americans and Egyptians and that the press section in the American embassy had requested extra appropriations to co-opt and recruit influential figures, including journalists, to counterbalance the anti-American spirit.¹⁹ After the abrogation of the 1936 Treaty, national mass movements systematically employed anti-American (as well as anti-British) slogans and called for a treaty of cooperation with the USSR. 

Egypt in revolution 

On the night of July 22, 1952, a group of young Egyptian army officers led a successful coup against the monarchy. King Farouk abdicated on July 26 in favor of his infant son and went into exile. The Egyptian monarchy came to a formal end on June 18, 1953, when a republic was proclaimed. The causes that led to the Free Officers’ Movement were numerous. Egypt’s socio-economic problems had become so extreme by 1952 that the existing political structure could not adequately deal with them. The economic problems were twofold: overpopulation and poverty. At the time of Muhammad ‘Ali’s suzerainty over Egypt, the country had a population of three million. By 1952 it had grown to about 20 million. The tremendous increase had severe economic and social consequences. Ever since the beginning of British occupation, there had been no attempt at modernization that otherwise might have led to the expected trickle-down effects which would raise the standard of living for significant proportion of the population. However, income inequalities increased, worsening poverty, which in turn fueled a population boom. Egypt remained a desperately underdeveloped nation whose masses were thoroughly and hopelessly impoverished. 

Poverty was compounded by the concentration of landownership. Absentee landowners were largely based in the cities and were out of touch with the conditions in the countryside, where 80 percent of the population lived. However, this minority invariably shaped Egypt’s political, social, and economic life. The monarchy had lost all vestiges of popular support, and the old nationalist movement, symbolized by the Wafd, had lost its dynamism and credibility. Conservative politicians were not prepared to undertake necessary economic or political reforms. Other factors exacerbated an already tenuous situation: the humiliating defeat of the Egyptian Army in Palestine; the personal sense among the Free Officers of failure in this war; and their belief that the defeat had been mainly the result of widespread corruption in the Palace. All these factors, combined with the British refusal to withdraw their forces from Sudan or the Canal Zone, paved the way for the Army takeover. 

The Free Officers’ Committee was primarily a group of lower- and middle-ranking army officers who had attended military college together. The acknowledged head of the secret organization was Lt. Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser, the son of a post office clerk. In order to obtain wider support, the group had chosen as their symbolic leader a respected officer and distinguished soldier, Gen. Mohammed Naguib. The Committee consisted of about 20 officers, four of them descended from the upper classes (major landowners, merchants, and bureaucrats) and about 16 from the petit bourgeoisie and the salaried strata.²⁰ 

In the first months after the July coup d’état, the Free Officers, under the leadership of their 13-man executive committee, the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), attempted to reorganize the political system and restore order to Egyptian life. Politically, this meant controlling the political environment enough to make the economic and social goals of the revolution come about more rapidly. Within months, the political parties of prerevolutionary Egypt were dissolved, and a new constitution was proclaimed. Resistance to the revolution remained, of course. The Muslim Brotherhood, the only remaining substantial political organization to survive the dissolution of the parties, was one such source of resistance and was powerful enough to delay the RCC from consolidating the new regime. 

 
Naguib was replaced by Nasser in April 1954 after a short power struggle. Both Naguib and Nasser had different visions of the political path that the country should follow. Whereas Naguib was in favor of restoring parliamentary democracy and civilian rule, Nasser wanted the army to remain in power, arguing that socio-economic development should take precedence over democracy and political liberalization. Nasser prevailed, and Naguib was placed under house arrest in October after an attempted assassination of Nasser. The attempt was sponsored by the “secret apparatus” of the Muslim Brotherhood (although there are claims that Nasser himself staged the event), giving Nasser a perfect excuse to disband it with force. By late 1954, Nasser had prevailed in the struggle for power, further consolidating his prestige with the revocation of the Anglo-Egyptian condominium over the Sudan and by the evacuation of British troops from the Canal Zone in 1956 (fulfilling agreements he concluded with London in 1953 and 1954, respectively). In June 1956, a national plebiscite endorsed Nasser’s presidency with the support of 99.9 percent of the electorate, thus formalizing his position and laying the foundation for a new political ideology: Nasserism. 

Nasserism 

The practical concerns of building a viable political order and maintaining the position of the RCC colored Nasser’s initial approach to politics. His main concern before the Suez Crisis of 1956 was the domestic security of his regime of moderate revolution. Even positive neutralism and gaining control of the Suez Canal were pragmatic responses to threatening circumstances, although they were also important tenets of his ideology. In fact, the notion of stability and order dominated the thinking of the RCC. For Nasser and his close associates, political instability was fomented by plurality. From their perspective, the different orientations of political parties and other civic organizations provoked chaos. The RCC’s remedy was to dissolve all such organizations. It followed that freedom of expression, free elections, majority rule, constitutional guarantees, and the rule of law were revoked. All social forces – large landowners, big merchants, the private industrial sector, top executives, unionized labor, religious organizations, the intelligentsia, students, unions, peasants’ societies, and even ethno-sectarian associations – were to be closely monitored and controlled. However remote the threat, no opposition would be allowed. 

Nasserism is associated with a historical epoch that commenced after 1956, when the magnetic personality of Nasser and his Arab nationalist and anti-imperalist nationalist slogans represented popular feelings in the Arab world. The nature of the discourse engendered a quest for a dynamic national identity and a common culture that would transcend conflicting interests, reduce the misery of the oppressed groups, and bring about a collective bond of solidarity. Nasserism was articulated as a discourse of grand principles and fostered fervent national pride during a time of revolutionary intensity that reached its zenith in the mid-1960s, with measures of nationalization and a 5-year economic plan to showcase Egyptian economic independence.²¹ Nasserism involved the pursuit of independence, Arab nationalism, domestic reform, economic development, and an activist foreign policy. Nasser’s domestic policy was founded on systematic acquisition of organizational power, popular power, and capital-resource power. The phases in the process of monopolizing the sources tend to overlap, but a rough scheme is as follows: 

1. The RCC was a parallel body to the state organs whose top decision-making positions – from ministries to executive posts in organs of local government, the bureaucracy, and the press – were immediately filled by army officers. All decisions were made within the RCC, which acted as a military junta. 

2. The use of the oppressive power of the state was intensified to eliminate all forms of opposition. A transitional phase of 3 years was declared in which the regime enforced martial law and exercised legislative, executive, and quasi-judicial functions. As a result, the regime transformed itself into a body with unlimited political power. It also established a reserve mass organization, the Liberation Rally, under Nasser’s direction in 1953, when the struggle with General Naguib was fermenting.²² In 1956, the Liberation Rally was superseded by a more elaborate body, the National Union, intended as a vehicle for mass mobilization and indoctrination. 

3. Prior to the new constitution, promulgated on January 16, 1956, the military had already gained control of the civil sources of power: organized labor, student unions and civil associations such as the Muslim Youth Society, and professional organizations. By monopolizing the content of information media and recruiting a large segment of the intelligentsia to become regime ideologues, the state was able to assume total control. 

Concurrent with these phases, Nasser deprived traditional groups and classes of their power bases: ownership of large economic assets in both land and capital. A number of sweeping new laws, initiated by the land Reform Act, were promulgated in 1952 and followed by a series of nationalization measures in 1961. In reality, such measures transferred the financial, industrial, agrarian, and service sectors to state control. 

Despite the slogans celebrating “social justice,” the first land reform law of 1952 was politically motivated to liquidate the power of the landed aristocracy. It targeted 93 landowners and confiscated 118,748 feddans (1 feddan = 1.038 acres).²³ Yet those who owned less than five feddans, the small land holders, who constituted 94.3 percent of the farming population, were not affected. Between 1961 and 1965, with further confiscations and an increase in the gross cultivatable area, the percentage of landowners remained the same, while the percentage of feddans they held increased to 57.1 percent. Distribution of confiscated and reclaimed land (478,000 feddans) into small peasant ownership did not entail legal proprietorship but only the right to utilize the land, regarded as state property. In effect, the state decided what was to be produced, the buying price of the crop, and its selling price. 

On January 16, 1956, a new constitution was promulgated, and Nasser – getting 99.9 percent of the vote – was elected president of the Republic of Egypt. Accordingly, a National Assembly (Parliament) was created in 1957. However, Article 192 of the Constitution stipulated that anyone running for Parliament was to be vetted by the National Union, established in 1956. Article 8 mandated the National Union to arrange and approve the list of candidates. The Mission Statement of the organization read: 

The National Union is not a government. It is an organization of the rulers and the people, which makes possible mutual cooperation to solve domestic problems within the framework of the Socialist Democratic Cooperative society. It is the instrument of genuine democracy and makes people feel that they govern themselves. 

The National Union ultimately rejected 1,188 out of 2,058 candidates put forward for the National Assembly in 1957. Consequently, regime loyalists and officers filled its seats. Despite his firm control, Nasser was unwilling to accept a modicum of criticism in the Assembly. He suspended it following some criticism in 1958, ostensibly to create a more relevant legislature in 1960, especially in light of the union with Syria. However, a new legislature did not materialize because the union fell apart in September 1961.²⁴ 

In November 1961, Nasser appointed the Preparatory Council to organize a Congress of the Popular Forces to draft the national charter for Egypt and to create the Arab Socialist Union (ASU) to replace the defunct National Union and, finally, to prepare for the election of the 350-member National Assembly.²⁵ The deliberations of the Preparatory Council were broadcast live on radio and television. The structure of the ASU was developed in 14 months during 1963–64, and membership was open to both sexes. Members of the police force and the army were excluded. Membership in the ASU became a prerequisite for running for a seat in the National Assembly and even for promotion to top positions in the public and private sectors. The ASU claimed to represent the interests of the popular forces. Peasants and workers were assigned half of the seats in the National Assembly, but the definitions of these two categories were so broad as to undermine the meaningfulness of the stipulation. Thus, it was the rural notables – still wealthy and possessing substantial power even after land reform – who got into the ASU and subsequently the Assembly. Moreover, there were no representatives of the workers and peasants on the ASU’s Supreme Committee during its lifetime.²⁶ 

The pyramidal structure of the ASU lacked a defined role and a coherent ideology, and its relationship with the other institutions, such as labor unions and the army, was never stated. In fact, the attempt to use the ASU to control all civilian life led some to infer that its objective role was really to check the increasing power and popularity of Marshal ‘Abdul Hakim ‘Amer, Nasser’s vice president, who enjoyed the loyalty of the army.²⁷ This notion is inferred by virtue of ‘Amer’s suicide subsequent to the military defeat of June 1967. His death transferred control of the army back to Nasser, effectively ending the ASU’s relevance. 

Nasser’s economic policy 

The initial economic success between 1957 and 1965 coincided with a favorable international Cold War environment for Egypt. After the Second World War, the region became the focus of American investment and trade. This resulted in a loosening of the dominating grip on the Third World, including Egypt, by the ex-colonial powers.²⁸ Nasser understood that political independence was inseparable from economic autonomy, a goal that was understood to require large-scale industrialization projects. Economic strategy was based on import substitution, the commonly accepted economic paradigm of the time, focusing on the industries that would end dependence on imports from Center (developed) countries. However, Nasser’s policy of centralizing power deprived him of the sort of flexible bureaucracy necessary for these projects to succeed, even though this provided him with the necessary capital base. 

Between 1961 and 1966, sequestration and nationalization contributed £E33 million in cash, 7,000 parcels of property, and 293 enterprises to the state’s treasury and assets.²⁹ In addition, Egypt received $50 million from western countries and other financial institutions between 1955 and 1960; another $200 million during 1961–66 and a further $16 million during 1967–69.³⁰ However, import substitution entailed inherent contradictions. First, it relied on having a “developed world” economy without the corresponding developmental infrastructure. Second, it favored the allocation of scarce resources to the production of capital goods, neglecting the production of such basics as subsistence foodstuffs. Agricultural production, in fact, stagnated relative to the increase in total population that still was concentrated in rural areas. Third, it forestalled the creation of an adequate technological and research base and thus, in effect, created technological dependency on others.³¹ 

The economic policies of Nasser’s regime can be understood in terms of étatism and dirigisme. The first refers to centralized administration and economic management; the second refers to the state as an essentially interventionist agent of economic transformation.³² We shall refer to the combined effect of these two instruments henceforth as state-planned capitalism (SPC). Nasser employed two main devices to achieve what he called economic self-sufficiency and social justice: expansion of the civil service and the establishment of a huge public sector that was in charge of 91 percent of total investment between 1961 and 1966 as well as control of 83 percent of all production tools: finance, insurance, extractive and processing industries, and all import and export activities.³³ 

There were four layers of power within the civil service and the public and para-public sectors. The loyal military personnel and members of the original 1952 coup were at the apex of power. The middle and lower management of these sectors was drawn from the prerevolutionary private sector, as it possessed business expertise. This second layer, the traditional bourgeoisie, served as intermediaries between military figures at the apex and the third layer, the technocrats – professors, technicians, and professionals – whose expertise was necessary for an advanced economic transformation. The fourth layer consisted of rural notables – mainly small landowners whose holdings survived land reform – who controlled local governments and village councils and who transformed themselves into powerful pressure groups whose interests seemed congruent with those of the other layers.³⁴ 

Within the first 10 years of the Revolution, the number of state employees, with their special privileges, increased 400 percent and then expanded by another 150 percent during 1961–65.³⁵ The expansion of the public sector created its own complex array of bureaucratic checks, discretionary procedures, and rules that allowed for the emergence of what Gunnar Myrdal called “the norm of corruption.” Corruption was comprehensive, ranging from large-scale graft by politicians, high-ranking army officers, and civil servants to extensive petty bribery at lower levels.³⁶ Thus Nasser’s state-planned capital ism generated a corporatist salaried stratum or “bureaucratic bourgeoisie” whose principal interest was to exploit the power of the state apparatus for personal gain. In the mid-1960s, this group had become so powerful that some observers referred to it as a “counter-developmental stratum.”³⁷ Despite initial financial success, state-planned capitalism could not generate and satisfy basic material needs: sufficient food, clothing, shelter, mobility, quality education, and health insurance. In the process of building his new society, Nasser did not protect human rights or provide democratic access to policy-making processes, despite his good intentions.³⁸ The military defeat of June 1967 put an end to the SPC. But it also coincided with Europe’s burgeoning economic growth and its growing interest in Third World markets as important outlets for Euro-American products and as transfer points for capital. And, of course, Third World markets were especially attractive to American transnational corporations, which were facing a triple-barreled problem of significant wage increases, scarcity of some raw materials, and legal constraints on environmental and industrial pollution at home.³⁹ 

Nasser’s foreign policy 

Nasser’s foreign policy focused on three issues: the Palestinian–Israeli conflict, the Cold War, and the macro-political dynamics of the Middle East. Israel was regarded throughout the Arab world as a creation of Western imperialism and detrimental to the interests of the Arab people.⁴⁰ By repeatedly denouncing Israel as a foe all Arabs could easily reject, Nasser extended Egyptian identity by conferring on it a regional element of legitimation: Nasserism. This became a new brand of Arab nationalism, with its goal of Arab unity. The rallying point was the Palestine problem, which grew out of and further spawned a sense of “Arabness” and solidified anti-western sentiment. Yet, the solution to the Palestine problem, from Nasser’s perspective until the defeat of 1967, was based on the UN Partition Resolution of 1947.⁴¹ Both Palestine and Arab unity, therefore, were a legitimating contrivance and weapons useful in controlling other Arab leaders more than reflecting on the real concern of Egyptian foreign policy. The real concerns did not match the rhetoric, which however on several occasions – as in the cases of the union with Syria in 1958 and the events leading to the Israeli attack in 1967 – led him into dangerous situations in order to demonstrate that his words were not hollow.⁴² 

The emergence of the global dimension of Nasser’s foreign policy is usually pinpointed to the Suez Crisis of 1956. In fact, it took shape the previous year, as a devastating Israeli raid on Gaza revealed Egypt’s military vulnerability. It was then heavily influenced by the American refusal to sell arms to Egypt, a state of affairs which forced Nasser to conclude an arms deal, purportedly with Czechoslovakia but in fact with the USSR. These circumstances coincided with the halcyon days of the non-aligned movement, as expressed by the Bandung Afro-Asian Congress of April 1955 and were also influential in the creation of the Afro-Asian Solidarity Movement.⁴³ Nasserism, as a discourse and theory, did not die with the Egyptian military defeat in June 1967 and the Israeli occupation of the Sinai. The defeat seemed at first to bring the Arab world together in a rallying call for Arabism, but this served essentially as a disguise for Egypt’s new dependence on Saudi Arabia and other Western client monarchies. The main goals of Nasserism, especially Arab unity, proved to be unachievable in light of the challenge it posed to the asymmetrical global power relationships. The sustained confrontation between the dominant Western powers and the Middle East has been unmatched in the history of colonialism, as the incorporation of the Arab states into the world capitalist system has made the region vulnerable to exploitation by Western powers. Egypt under Sadat 

Vice President Anwar Sadat found himself the new acting president following Nasser’s death in September 1970. His accession to office was a matter of chance rather than merit or even the preferences of many others. Between September 1970 and May 1971, he promised to pursue Nasser’s policy in form and content. A power struggle erupted, and Sadat solidified his position by appointing a loyal army chief of staff as commander of the presidential guard. In early May, Sadat rounded up more than 90 prominent figures and initiated an about-face against Nasserism.⁴⁴ Then under Sadat’s rule, the country witnessed a comprehensive reorientation process in both domestic and foreign affairs. Many analysts have referred to the reorientation as the de-Nasserization of Egypt,⁴⁵ which was the outcome of several factors, perhaps the most important of which was Sadat’s lack of a charismatic personality. Despite his success in overcoming his main political opponents from the left and in consolidating his political authority, he did not possess such a magnetic personal relationship with the public. He had not been well known to most Egyptians during the time of Nasser because he had not occupied a key position except until the very end. Even when Nasser appointed him vice president, he did not gain much influence and remained in the shadow of Nasser. Sadat appeared to recognize this and thus sought to establish his legitimacy on new grounds: success in domestic and foreign affairs. 

Sadat has been credited with making peace with Israel and liberalizing Egypt. As early as 1971, he created a “permanent” constitution, which provided for an elected legislature, the People’s Assembly. Nevertheless, the Constitution gave the president great power, including authority to make laws and dissolve the People’s Assembly. The constitution maintained Nasser’s single-party system, keeping the ASU without major change. But the ASU later was reorganized into three forums: the Right, the Center, and the Left, finally making way for their transformation into parties in 1977. After all, as early as 1973 according to Yahia al-Gamal, a professor of law and a Sadat cabinet minister, the only political reality in the political decision-making process was the person of the president. All others were simply the cast for a legitimizing political backdrop.⁴⁶ In effect, this seeming gradual emergence of pluralist democratic features amounted only to a good show. Eager to win American support and to show his change of direction, Sadat ordered the expulsion of Soviet military personnel from Egypt in July 1972, and by the end of August, all 7,725 had left. However, American support never materialized because Sadat’s diplomatic demarche did not correspond with American goal in the region at the time, to replace the USSR and thus to become the only superpower in the region.⁴⁷ Frustrated by American inaction, Sadat decided to launch a limited war that had been conceived by the military during the Nasser era to break the diplomatic deadlock and steer the superpowers, particularly the United States, toward a peaceful settlement. 

The October war 

On October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria launched a war that was essentially a diplomatic gambit. Egyptian forces were to cross the Suez Canal, advance for only about 15 kilometers, and remain within the protective umbrella of the surface-to-air missiles installed on the western side of the canal. From October 5–15, Israeli forces were ordered to fall back, and their counter-offensive was halted. Sadat, without any real military experience at the front, decided at this point to change the strategy and to send the army into the open desert despite strong objections from Egyptian army commanders. The result was a military setback, with Israel pinning down Egypt’s Third Army on the Canal’s eastern bank. The battlefield victory turned into a stalemate, with Israeli troops 99 miles from Cairo. The eventual demilitarization of the Sinai and Sadat’s consistent mismanagement of the war prompted the Egyptian general chief of staff, Sa’ad al-Shazli, to file a court case with the prosecutor general against the president in July 1979, accusing him of treason.⁴⁸ 

The political outcome of the war, and the consequent Egyptian–Israeli peace based on what came to be known as the Camp David Accords entailed related domestic, regional, and international repercussions. Domestically, the Sinai became demilitarized, and Egypt became indefinitely bound by the terms of an American memorandum attached to the accord. The memorandum held that in the event of Egyptian violation of the treaty the United States could take “such remedial measures as it deemed appropriate, which may include diplomatic, economic and military measures.”⁴⁹ Egypt thus became unable to engage in an active role in Arab regional politics. For instance, it could not become involved in countering the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon in 1982. Regionally, as the Egyptian negotiators sat face-to-face for the first time with their Israeli counterparts, previously an unthinkable situation, their sense of Arabness, began to break down and ultimately disintegrated with the conclusion of the Camp David negotiations. Furthermore, the separation between the “Framework for Peace” signed in 1978 and the bilateral Egyptian–Israeli Agreement, signed in 1979, left the problem of Palestine to be negotiated between concerned parties. In effect, a resolution of the Palestinian problem was postponed, and Egypt’s membership from the Arab League was suspended in 1979 and the headquarters of the organization moved to Tunis. The transformation of Egypt from Nasser’s anti-imperialism to the status of a US client state working in tandem with Israel – while purporting to demonstrate in the face of the country’s intense Arab/Islamic identity that its participation in a diplomatic “peace process” presented hope for the Palestinians – was complete. 

Egyptian economic policy under Sadat 

Between 1971 and 1975, the Egyptian commodity sector as a percentage of GDP slid from 55.6 to 51.3 percent, and the service sector rose from 44.4 to 48.7 percent. The government continued to rely on short-term commercial loans, which by 1974 represented 36 percent of its current operating account, in order to compensate for reduced domestic private sector savings that had declined from 12.7 to 4.5 percent. In the same period there was also a deficit in the current operating account amounting to 21 percent of the GDP.50 The net outcome was a sharp increase in inflation and a reduced ability to supply basic needs. Between 1973 and 1976, Egypt received soft loans from the Arab oil-rich countries totaling US$4.4 billion.51 In 1976, it was compelled to conclude an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for an economic stabilization program that required that the deficit be reduced by controlling wages and by cutting state subsidies for basic staples. As a result, riots broke out in 1977; the trial court, which ruled that the riot was justifiable in light of the events provoking it, released most of those arrested. Ironically, Sadat described the people’s riot as “thugs’ action.” 

By 1974, the government moved toward liberalizing the economy by measures that came to be called the “economic open door policy” or infitah. The government passed the Investment Law 43/1974 for Arab and Foreign Capital, which was then amended by Law 32/1977. The goal of the two laws was to give privileges and legal protection to imported Arab and foreign capital. Thus, the pre-1952 bourgeoisie reemerged in alliance with civil service technocrats and military officers to establish import agencies and speculate in the brokerage and financial sectors. By 1982, there were more than 1,800 import agencies, a pressure group powerful enough to incorporate the Egyptian economy fully into world capitalist markets.52 

Between 1975 and 1981, the annual average growth in agriculture was 1.8 percent; in mining and industry, 6.2 percent; in transportation and storage, 7.6 percent; in the civil services, 9.9 percent; and in the finance sector, 17 percent.53 Between 1970 and 1975, the average annual growth in wages was 33.1 percent, but the average price increase for the urban food basket was 46.6 percent; and in clothing, 34.7 percent.54 On the other hand, the open-door policy did not attract new capital, as most investment funds came from the public sector or from domestic groups. In 1980, the external debt was US$19.1 billion, and debt service was 13.4 percent of GDP. Between 1981 and 1990, rural poverty rose from 16.1 to 28.6 percent, and urban poverty rose from 18.2 to 20.3 percent. In terms of income deciles, the bottom 80 percent fared worse than in 1975, while the top 20 percent was better off.55 Between 1984 and 1988, external debt increased progressively from US$37.8 billion to $45.7 billion. The debt service paid to US sources alone totaled US$2.4 billion to $3.4 billion while the export value of goods and services dropped from US$3.4 billion to $2.7 billion. Egyptian export earnings were insufficient to pay even the debt service charges.56 The liberalization of the economy thus impoverished the majority while it enriched the well-off few who had supported the close ties between foreign capital and the regime. In sum, the wealthy people simply depleted economic resources instead of turning into a genuine national bourgeoisie engaged in economic development and political reform.57 

Political liberalization under Sadat 

An Egyptian scholar has argued that political pluralism normally embodies three main principles: freedom of expression and tolerance for differences of opinion; commitment to a peaceful transfer of power in accordance with majority votes; and the supremacy of law.⁵⁸ In 1974, concomitant to the “open-door policy,” Sadat issued his “October Paper” outlining a strategy for the development until the year 2000. In this document, he criticized the ASU and called for the introduction of structural and organizational reform within it. Although the October Paper supported keeping the ASU as the only political organization, it recognized the presence of different political trends within this organization. Four months later, Sadat issued another paper addressing in detail the issue of ASU reform, declaring the presence of three major political trends as follows: 

There are those who tend to be conservative. They suspect the new and prefer to move gradually…. There are others who are motivated by the desire for radical change, and between these two groups there is a majority which aspires towards progress but which does not wish to lead into the unknown…. It is desirable that the Arab Socialist Union, which represents the alliance of people’s forces, should reflect these various trends in its leadership.⁵⁹ 

The two papers triggered intensive debate inside the ASU, which ended with the adoption of a resolution accepting Sadat’s idea. The resolution approved the establishment of political forums or platforms (manabir), reflecting different ideological and political trends, within the ASU. Sadat then established a national committee to discuss the future of political organizations in the country. The committee conducted about 16 sessions in the period between February 1 and March 19, 1976, with four major trends emerging from the discussions in its final report. The first trend, which was adopted by a majority inside the ASU, opposed a multiparty system and called for the establishment of fixed forums (manabir) within the ASU. The second trend supported the continuity of the ASU while allowing for more freedom of expression through establishing opinion forums. The third trend advocated the establishment of political parties; and the fourth called for the establishment of manabir both inside and outside the ASU. Sadat adopted the first approach and agreed to the establishment of three manabir within the framework of the ASU: the Liberal Socialist Forum represented the right; the Arab Socialist Forum represented the center – that is the regime – and the Nationalist Progressive Unionist Forum represented the left. Other major political forces, such as the Wafd, the Nasserites, the Muslim Brothers, and the Communists, were not permitted representation. In 1976, the three political forums competed for seats in the People’s Assembly. The 1976 elections were the first competitive parliamentary elections in more than two decades. The Arab Socialist Forum achieved an overwhelming victory, winning 81.8 percent of the total vote, while 3.6 percent went to the Liberal Socialist Forum, 0.06 percent to the Nationalist Progressive Unionist Forum, and 14 percent to independent candidates.⁶⁰ 

The same year, Sadat decreed the final transformation of the forums into independent political parties. On November 11, 1976, he asked the People’s Assembly to issue a law permitting their establishment and for the abolition of all laws to the contrary. In 1977, Political Parties Law No. 40 was issued, and five parties were established, three of which corresponded to the previous political forums. The Egypt Arab Socialist Party, representing the center, and headed by Sadat, later became the National Democratic Party (NDP). The Socialist Liberal Party represented the right, and the National Progressive Unionist Party (NPUP, Tagamu) represented the left. The Socialist Labor Party and the New Wafd Party (NWP) also emerged. Despite the significance of reintroducing competitive party politics in Egypt, the law placed major restrictions on their formation and operation. According to the law, all parties must 

uphold the constitution; not be established on an ethnic, religious, class or racial basis; justify their creation by showing that their basic program differs substantially from existing parties; obtain prior official permission for meetings outside their own premises; refrain from accepting foreign funding or forming cooperative alliances with parties in other countries; and should not advocate or engage in any street demonstrations or public rallies.⁶¹ 

Another serious restriction in the Law was the formation of the so-called “Committee for Political Parties’ Affairs,” with the purpose of reviewing and approving the establishment of parties. This stipulated that they get the approval of the Committee, which was chaired by the secretary of the Central Committee of the ASU (this was changed later to the chairman of the Shura Council or upper house following its establishment) and composed of the minister of justice, the minister of interior, and the state minister for the People’s Assembly, along with three independents. The Committee was required to examine applications and had the right to request necessary documents. It also had authority to ban activities of political parties if it was proven that they or some of their leaders or members had violated the Constitution or had not abided by its declared program (articles 8 and 17). In this respect, the law gave the regime full control over the process. 

Sadat’s aim was to set up a limited – basically cosmetic – process of liberalization under his full control. He wanted to project Egypt as a liberal, democratic country to the West but was not ready to surrender his grip on Egyptian politics. Thus Sadat strictly controlled what he presented as a fragile “democratization,” as soon became evident. It took a long time for some observers to discern that such political liberalization under Sadat and afterward did not represent a gradual “transition to democracy” but rather provided a clever way of warding it off and entrenching “liberalized autocracy.”⁶² Allowing opposition parties to contest still heavily rigged parliamentary elections provided a method of incorporating them into the authoritarian system by allowing them to win a few seats and accompanying benefits. A president – dictator might receive a mere 97 percent of the vote (with no other candidates permitted) rather than the previously familiar 99.99 percent, but that provided no indication of real change. And yet this provided some raw material for foreign powers that claimed to be “promoting democracy” – notably the United States – to continue to back their client dictators. 

In November 1977, Egypt experienced massive food riots, referred to earlier, in protest against Sadat’s economic policies. Seeing this as a threat to his regime, he responded by issuing a series of decrees that repressed the modest civil liberties previously initiated. In addition, the conclusion of the Egyptian–Israeli peace treaty in 1979 triggered extensive criticism from several Egyptian political forces, including the Muslim Brotherhood, the Communists, and the Wafd, and in turn Sadat went on the offensive. In June of that year, he called for new parliamentary elections, with the purpose of securing an overwhelming majority in the People’s Assembly for the NDP. Subject to relentless government interventions and violations, the elections provided an 88.7 percent majority for the ruling party, as might be expected. In 1980, Sadat amended the 1971 Constitution by introducing a clause that allowed for the reelection of the president of the Republic for indefinite numbers of terms. Finally, in 1981, he imprisoned 1,519 leading political figures accused of being dissidents, who were released only after his assassination. 

Mubarak: continuity and change 

As soon as Hosni Mubarak assumed the presidency, following the assassination of Sadat, he made several statements that emphasized his concern with political continuity and stability. One of his earliest moves was to deal with the acute economic problems facing the country that had resulted from the open-door policy. He called for a meeting of Egyptian economists to examine and offer suggestions for dealing with the country’s economic difficulties. Mubarak himself also readjusted the open-door policy and stressed that it should concentrate on productive projects. Nevertheless, the economic situation continued to deteriorate because of the lack of will on the part of the political leadership to implement these recommendations. As a result, housing, transportation, and inflation problems increased, and foreign debt continued to rise, as the basic tenets of the open-door policy continued to operate. 

On the internal political level, Mubarak initially endeavored to follow a path of political liberalization, immediately releasing political prisoners and rehabilitating opposition forces. He also declared a new policy of open discussion, with respect for the opposition. The Wafd Party returned, and the Islamic-oriented Ummah Party emerged in 1983. Despite such initial efforts, subsequent developments, notably the reinstitution of state controls, prevented opposition forces, including Nasserites, leftists, and activist religious groups, from participating in the electoral system. On a regional level, Mubarak succeeded in returning Egypt to the Arab fold. 

Egyptian domestic politics under Mubarak 

The fundamental components of political life under Mubarak were, first, a legally enforced restriction of public activity, and second, a “policy of exception in which those responsible for human rights violations usually escape punishment amid a climate of impunity intentionally created and fostered over several decades.” These conditions were aptly summarized in a recent Joint Report by a Coalition of Egyptian Human Rights nongovernmental organizations. Fundamental to this political environment is the “State of Emergency” laws passed in 1981, which continued uninterrupted, creating a culture of impunity for state authorities and an absence of legal transparency. Consequently, the role of the security apparatus continued to expand, interfering in the cultural, political, and religious domains. As an example, the “University Laws” subjected academies of higher education to state security control, with University presidents appointed by presidential decree; the appointment, promotion, and travel of academics likewise being subject to security control. 

Egyptians were ensured no protection against torture by the state security apparatuses. These practices took on an international component in the post-9/11 era, as Egypt has served as a destination for “extraordinary renditions” in the “war on terror.” The Egyptian government resisted all attempts to align its extremely narrow (and hence meaningless) definition of torture to the standards of the United Nations and human rights organizations. Under the “State of Emergency” laws, Egypt operated a complex of “emergency courts” allowed to consider cases typically assigned to common courts. Constitutional amendments in 2007 provided legal protection for the use of these “emergency courts” to prosecute a wide range of offenses. The Egyptian legal system applies the death penalty to a whole host of offenses, while offering very limited recourse for appeal. Starting in 1992, “military tribunals and emergency courts issued at least 137 death sentences in terrorism cases,” 67 of which were carried out. Moreover, under the rubric of the “State of Emergency” law, the Egyptian government suspended constitutional protections after 1981, constituting severe restriction on basic freedoms. Egyptians were prevented from forming political parties, organizing independent trade unions, or peacefully assembling and were commonly subjected to warrantless arrests and searches.63 

Like Sadat, Mubarak was in favor of a limited and tightly controlled process of political liberalization. In 1983, a new electoral system was established by amending the electoral law of 1972. The new system established three major electoral rules: first, it decreased the number of electoral districts, replacing the previous 175 districts with 48 large constituencies; and second, elections were to be held according to the system of proportional representation. This meant that elections were to be conducted on the basis of party slates, as distinct from the 1979 elections, in which candidates, regardless of party affiliation, had to run as “independents.” Third, political parties had to obtain at least 8 percent of the vote to be eligible to take seats in the Parliament. In 1984, Mubarak’s first parliamentary elections were held. Five political parties contested the elections, and the Muslim Brotherhood was allowed participation under the auspices of the Wafd Party. The elections were controversial – with alleged incidents of violence and forgery – and the results were challenged. However, the NDP won 73 percent of the votes, while the Wafd, in alliance with the Brotherhood, received 15 percent and emerged as the main opposition party. 

In February 1987, Mubarak decided to dissolve Parliament and hold elections in April, following a Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) decision that prohibition of independent candidates was ultra vires. The SCC decision resulted in a second amendment to the electoral law. The 1987 amendment stipulated that independent candidates could run in the election while maintaining the principle of party list-based elections. Each electoral constituency was to include one independent candidate, in addition to the party lists, and voters could cast one vote for an independent candidate and one for a party. This meant that the election would have 48 independent candidates, one for each constituency.64 The elections resulted in better representation of the opposition parties, with the NDP – in effect, a network of local notables whose patron–client relationship with the poor kept the bulk of the latter’s votes in its column65 – still retaining a huge majority. Meanwhile, the trilateral alliance of the Labor Party, the Liberal Party, and the Muslim Brotherhood enabled it to win 60 seats (22 for the Labor, 34 for the Brotherhood, and four for the Liberals) and thus become the prime opposition force. The Wafd won only 12 seats. 

Despite the growth in representation for the opposition, opposition parties accused the government of not fully abiding by the SCC ruling. They continued to question the legality of the electoral law, which, from their viewpoint, still gave limited opportunity to independent candidates. Accordingly, the dispute was referred again to the SCC, which in 1990 declared unconstitutional all limits on the right to run independent candidates. The new SCC ruling resulted in a return to the majority-vote system, based on two-round elections involving opposing individual candidates in 222 two-member constituencies. 

It was a hollow victory for the opposition. The state of emergency, declared in 1981, remained in effect, much to the annoyance of the opposition. Thus, the major opposition parties, the Wafd Party and the Socialist Labor Party (SLP)-Brotherhood Alliance, decided to boycott the 1990 elections and sought to persuade all other opposition parties to join them in a united front against the regime and the state of emergency. However, the elections resulted in an overwhelming majority for the NDP, which obtained 85.94 percent of the seats, with independent candidates and the NPUP winning 12.5 and 1.34 percent, respectively. By 1993, the nomination of Mubarak to a third 6-year term as president was being vigorously challenged by terrorist activities of the jihad group. In that year, a secularist writer, Farag Fouda, who reiterated the government’s position on Islamic activism on a weekly television show, was assassinated. Attempts were also made to assassinate the information minister, the interior minister, and the prime minister. Although these attempts failed, they had caused the death of innocent people. In 1994, Mubarak initiated a national dialogue, involving the government and opposition parties, in an attempt to forge agreement on basic issues facing the nation and, especially, to mobilize widespread political support to confront Islamic militants. The dialogue proved fruitless because the government refused to discuss issues like constitutional and political reform, which were bones of contention for the opposition groups. 

The regime took other steps to consolidate its power and eliminate threats from Islamic militants as well as from even moderate critics in the opposition. In 1992, Law 40/1977 was again amended to impose onerous restrictions on political party activity. The amendment banned founding members of any new party from activities prior to approval by the Parties Committee. Violations would be punished with greater severity than previously. For example, prison sentences from 1–5 years replaced the old L.E. 500 fine.⁶⁶ In the same year, the penal code (Law 97/1992) was amended to allow for harsher penalties for any acts of “terrorism” carried out by individuals or groups. Terrorist acts would be referred to the Supreme State Security as well as to military courts, whose rulings are not subject to appeal, but only to modification or dismissal, by the president of the Republic. Then in 1993, a new law authorized the judiciary to supervise elections in professional syndicates, served to curb the increasing Islamist influence in such organizations. Finally, in 1994, the government renewed the ban on the Muslim Brotherhood, which since the 1970s had in practice been tolerated, accusing it of illegally supporting terrorist Islamic groups and thus alienating even the moderate elements within the Islamist movement. 

The legal restrictions were matched by stringent security measures. In late 1993 the government began to pursue a more aggressive policy against Islamic opposition groups, leading to a sharp drop in terrorist attacks, albeit at the sacrifice of human rights. Prominent journalist and writer Mohammad Heikal claimed that in 1994, on average, 50 Egyptians were detained daily, five private citizens were killed every week – either by the government or by Islamist groups – and three Egyptians were hanged by the government each month, whether or not they had pleaded guilty. Heikal commented that, while Islam cannot be preached by murder, just laws could not be implemented by having the police announce killings of suspected fanatics. Even the pro-government Arab Strategic Report, in a rare admission, warned that the problem of “thousands of detainees” could undermine Egypt, although detentions might seem necessary to counter terrorism.⁶⁷ While the Egyptian government strengthened its political control, it tried to present an image of fostering democracy and mass participation by claiming to encourage the establishment of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which under the rubric of “civil society,” had come to be touted as the key to democratization throughout the world. 

According to political scientist Ahmad Abdallah, although Egypt has 15,000 NGOs that were active in many fields, severe regulations prohibited them from forming the basis of a sound civil society. First, a single department in the Ministry of Social Affairs supervised NGOs, all of which were subject to the same close scrutiny despite differences in purposes and activities. Second, they were regulated by a complex set of rules and regulations originating from 1964 onward that precluded the emergence of an independent civil society. As per Law 84 (2002), no civil society association could be formed without the expressed approval of the Ministry of Social Affairs. Moreover the scope of potential NGOs was regulated by Article 25 which, in related political parties, had the potential to influence NGO activity, as it prevented them from cooperating with established parties to investigate matters of mutual concern. Moreover, the laws regulating NGOs not only determined which organizations would be permitted, but also continued to regulate their activity after formation. Article 34 gave the Ministry of Social Affairs power to “disqualify at will candidates for the membership of governing bodies” within NGOs, while Article 23 allowed the Ministry to force them to rescind any decision or decree issued by the association where it is deemed to violate laws. Finally, the Ministry of Social Affairs (as per Article 42) could dissolve an NGO at any moment if it dispersed funds in violation of its charter; received funds from foreign bodies or collected donations without prior approval; established institutional ties with organizations/NGOs outside Egypt; or committed any – using highly ambiguous language – “grave” violation of the law or public morals.⁶⁸ Finally, these organizations were established and administered by an elite that was somewhat alienated from the average citizen. All of these factors worked to undermine participation in the political system. 

The next parliamentary election was held on schedule in 1995. Realizing that past electoral boycotts had failed, the opposition parties decided to participate. Opposition to the government centered on the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, whose candidates – running as independents – participated in the election despite its illegal status. Mubarak responded by ordering a massive detention of its members and their trial by military courts. One Brotherhood candidate was arrested twice at his own campaign rallies, despite a court order allowing him to campaign freely. Pre-election violence at rallies – involving security forces and supporters of opposition candidates – claimed 12 lives, while more than 1,000 people were arrested. Fifty-four Brotherhood leaders were found guilty of sedition and sentenced to hard labor in the week before the election. The results of the poll were predictable: of 444 parliamentary seats, Mubarak’s supporters claimed over 400. The regime’s lack of commitment to true democracy was coupled with its flagrant disregard for the Constitution. By 1997, the Supreme Constitutional Court had invalidated 121 laws. Six had been proclaimed before the 1952 revolution, 27 under the Nasser regime, 38 during Sadat’s regime, and 50 under Mubarak’s rule. Thirty-two of these laws had been enacted in 1996–97. As overwhelming as these figures may be, not all alleged unconstitutional laws were challenged in court. 

In July 2000, the Higher Constitutional Court invalidated the election of the 1990 Parliament on the grounds that a clause in the electoral law was unconstitutional. The ruling, although specifically aimed at the 1990 Parliament, meant that the Parliament then in session was also illegitimate. President Mubarak, therefore, stepped in and issued two decrees. The first one introduced amendments to the law on practicing political rights, and the second summoned Parliament from its summer recess to accept or reject the changes. The changes were unanimously endorsed during an extraordinary parliamentary session, averting a potential constitutional crisis. These amendments satisfied a key opposition demand, validated by the court’s decision, that elections at all main and branch polling stations be supervised by judges rather than public sector officials. The changes further obliged the government to stagger elections over 3 weeks instead of holding them all on one day.⁶⁹ 

Observers claimed that the real danger of Mubarak’s crackdown was that it would accelerate the radicalization of the Islamist opposition by denying it any role in legitimate political life. The Brotherhood and its splinter groups were very well connected, especially in academic and professional circles as well as with owners of small and medium-sized businesses. It also enjoyed tremendous support among thousands of Egyptians abroad, many of whom provided financial support. Like most Islamist groups, the Brotherhood is more than a political organization. It has managed schools, medical facilities, and media outlets, and it has had strong connections with groups monitoring human rights abuses. Many of its operations were crippled by the government crackdown in the run-up to the 1995 elections. Amnesty International claims that Brotherhood supporters or activists were regularly rounded up and detained, without charge or on false charges. While detained they were often beaten, tortured, and threatened with the rape or abuse of their female relatives. 

Although Mubarak and his supporters won the 1995 elections with over 94 percent of the popular vote, voting irregularities led to approximately one-third of those elected having their seats challenged. By 1998, the appeals court had nullified the elections of some 170 members of the Assembly, which however remained safely in the NDP’s clutch when it nominated Mubarak for a fourth 6-year term as president.⁷⁰ According to the Arab Strategic Report 1998, his government faced a huge credibility problem at the beginning of the parliamentary session in 1998, despite his landslide electoral victory.⁷¹ Because of the loss of a large number of seats due to electoral irregularities and because of a high level of absenteeism in the People’s Assembly, new elections were needed to reestablish legitimacy. The Assembly had seemingly abdicated its legislative authority, making it no more than a rubber stamp for the regime. This was evident in the sporadic activity conducted by the 51st Assembly during its third session in 1997. A paltry 11 laws were passed, with practically no discussion, while 29 pieces of legislation gave the government emergency powers, despite a decline in terrorism. 

General Elections in 2000 evidenced a significant shift in Egyptian politics. Throughout the 1990s, the judiciary increasingly served as “the opposition” in a number of political tasks, such as the promotion of democracy and political liberalization. In fact, a number of the political parties who gained seats in the Egyptian People’s Assembly in 2000 finally acquired them only by means of court orders. To avoid the electoral abuses of the 1995 national election, the Egyptian Supreme Court enabled judges to oversee the 2000 voting. Evidently, the 2000 elections were conducted to the satisfaction of many in the opposition as well as to the satisfaction of international observers. There were gains for a number of opposition parties and a dramatic ousting of incumbent NDP deputies. Of the 442 contested seats, only 132 deputies managed to return to office. The allocation of seats again favored the ruling NDP with 388 deputies, down from 410 in the previous election. Some 256 independent candidates won seats, with 218 joining the NDP, swelling the government’s majority. Opposition members rose to 35, an increase of 21 seats from the previous Assembly, including 17 Muslim Brothers, seven from the Wafd, six from Tagammu, two Nasserites, and one from the Liberal party, with two remaining independent. 

The government’s clampdown on the Muslim Brotherhood was seen as one of the principal reasons for the latter’s success. The unremitting harassment of Brotherhood members and supporters created sympathy for it. The imprisonment of senior members led the Brotherhood to run a slate of young and relatively unknown candidates, and it became less susceptible to government scrutiny. Candidates for parliamentary seats included 57 Christians, of which seven (six Copts and one Roman Catholic) were elected. Gender disparity, a criticism of the Assembly’s composition since the 1979 abrogation of the law imposing mandatory representation for women, saw a record 120 women candidates run for office. With five winning election, and a further six women appointed by Mubarak among the ten members he was constitutionally required to select, this was the highest level of female representation since 1979. 

The post-2000 façade of democracy and the question of succession 

Mubarak’s authoritarian tendencies increasingly met resistance from within and outside the country after the turn of the century. External pressures played the more important role. The prototypical US policy toward regimes in the region has been characterized by doing whatever is necessary to perpetuate the power of various authoritarian client regimes that serve its interests. Admittedly, the United States has engaged in rhetoric about democracy promotion while allocating the larger portion its democracy-oriented aid – around $250 million during the 1990s – to projects not likely to undermine local authority. In the aftermath of 9/11, America’s rhetoric about supporting democratization intensified, with US officials arguing that authoritarian regimes nurtured extremism among their people. In reality, Washington continued to back authoritarian rulers such as Mubarak with massive military assistance while tending to whitewash their dictatorial nature. The Mubarak regime fully grasped the change in US rhetoric and so adopted a number of measures designed to accentuate its façade of democracy. In 2002, it set up a National Council for Human Rights, a government-appointed body. It canceled the system of State Security Courts and initiated a dialogue with opposition forces. These measures were largely the result of the growing influence of Mubarak’s son, Gamal, within the ranks of the NDP. And the reforms were likely intended to propel the young Mubarak to the forefront of the Egyptian politics by depicting him as a catalyst for reform and as a representative of youthful aspirations for change. Such speculation grew when he emerged in the political limelight at the General Congress of the National Democratic Party in September 2003. During the Congress, Gamal Mubarak was appointed Secretary of the NDP Policies’ Committee, making him responsible for shaping the party’s general policies at home and abroad. 

In 2004 opposition and civil society groups joined forces in calling for democratic reform and in recognizing that the changes were merely cosmetic. In March of that year, the Muslim Brotherhood formulated a comprehensive initiative for political, economic, religious, and social reform. The initiative, announced by Supreme Guide Mahdy Akef before the Egyptian journalists’ syndicate, voiced support for a parliamentary, constitutional, republican system and called for respecting public freedoms and the principles of democracy. It urged that steps to ensure the independence of the judiciary should be taken and demanded that laws be made more compatible with the sharia. In the economic sphere, the initiative called for promoting the private sector through a well-thought-out privatization program and with closer cooperation with the rest of the world. In the religious sphere, the initiative called for the formation of a committee of senior religious scholars; for the grand imam of al-Azhar – long subordinated to the regime – to be elected; and for Muslim endowments to be separated from the state budget. It also voiced commitment to freedom of belief and worship and urged national unity. The initiative received mixed reactions from the different political forces. Both the regime and al-Tagamuu Party denounced it for different reasons. Whereas the regime rejected any role for illegal organizations such as the Brotherhood, al-Tagammu rejected the initiative due to its long-standing ideological conflict with the Islamist group. The Wafd, Nasserite, and Labor parties cautiously welcomed the initiative. 

In line with the Brotherhood initiative, in August 2004 the Egyptian Movement for Change, Kefaya (Enough), came together. Its composition included nearly 300 Egyptian intellectuals and political activists of all political stripes – pan-Arabists and Nasserists as well as Islamists, Marxists, and liberals. Kefaya emerged as the most vocal opposition movement, denouncing the NDP’s political monopoly and calling on Mubarak to step down. Kefaya also rejected Gamal as a candidate for high office. In October, the Movement held its first conference, where its founding document was presented by a highly respected former judge, Tariq al-Bishri, who called on Egyptians to withdraw their “long-abused consent to be governed” and to engage in civil disobedience.⁷² The movement also urged immediate political and constitutional reform, the independence of the judiciary, and the abrogation of emergency and extraordinary laws. In December, Kefaya organized its first demonstrations in Cairo, demanding an end to Mubarak’s rule. According to the Arab Strategic Report 2004/2005, these demonstrations represented a remarkable break with tradition. Over the past two decades, popular demonstrations had focused on foreign affairs, such as the war in Iraq and the Palestine question, while domestic issues had been confined to debates in the press, to seminars, and to party headquarters. The situation had changed, however, with the rise of Kefaya. The movement managed to organize public rallies on domestic issues without prior consultation with the authorities. In addition, the three principal legal opposition parties, the Wafd Party, the National Progressive Unionist Party (the Tagammu Party), and the Arab Nasserist Party, joined in an “Alliance of National Forces for Reform” with the Islamist Labor Party, which had not been allowed to operate or to publish its newspaper since 2000. The Alliance presented its agenda in September 2004 to coincide with the annual congress of the NDP and called for six main reforms: An end to the state of emergency; a constitutional amendment to allow for the direct election of the president from among competing candidates and a limitation of any individual to two 5-year presidential terms; free elections under judicial supervision; greater freedom to establish political parties; a loosening of the government’s controls over unions, syndicates, and civil society groups; and an end to the ruling party’s dominance of the state media. 

In 2005, opposition forces amplified their demands for political reform, and in February of that year the president called for a change to Article 76 of the Constitution in order to allow competition in presidential elections. Although Mubarak’s initiative likely came in response to outside pressures, it triggered an unprecedented level of unrest and civil activism. During the months following the February announcement, a disparate collection of opposition movements across different sectors of society converged with one message: opposition to the status quo. Thousands demonstrated regularly, demanding more political freedoms and democratic reform. For the first time in decades, thousands of Muslim Brotherhood protesters took to the streets in March 2005, and in front of the People’s Assembly they called for constitutional reforms and lifting restrictive emergency laws. During the following month, the same organization organized demonstrations on university campuses, mobilizing thousands of Islamist students to call for the cancellation of the Emergency Law. In the same month, 15 Brotherhood members of Parliament presented a memo on Article 76 to the Speaker of the People’s Assembly demanding direct, multicandidate presidential elections under full judicial supervision; that candidates be required to secure signatures of 20,000 voters to be nominated; that a commission, headed by the chairman of the Supreme Constitutional Court and including four Councilors from the Court of Cassation, be established to supervise the electoral process; and that the successful presidential candidate give up his party affiliation, that is, that he be independent of partisan affiliation.⁷³ In addition, the Kefaya movement, joined by other political forces, organized vociferous protests in many Egyptian cities, demanding an end to Mubarak’s rule and the implementation of reform. However, optimism for genuine political reform faded quickly, as the drafting of the constitutional amendment continued to conform to the overall interests of the regime. The NDP set terms that were intended to maintain its monopoly over political life. The amended article, approved soon afterward by both the People’s Assembly and the Shura Council read as follows: 

4. For nomination to the presidential elections, independent candidates need the approval of at least 250 elected members from the People’s Assembly, Shura Council, and local councils, all together. Out of this figure, the approval of at least i) 65 members from the People’s Assembly, ii) 25 members from the Shura Council, and iii) 10 local councillors in 14 of the 26 provinces, must be secured. 

5. Political parties, which were founded at least five years before the date of nomination to the presidential elections, and which have at least 5 percent of the number of seats inside the People’s Assembly and Shura Council – 5 percent for each – have the right to nominate one of their senior members to the presidential elections. 

6. Candidates of political parties to the presidential elections are exempted from the five year and 5 percent conditions for the September 2005 elections. 

7. An oversight commission – The Committee of Presidential Elections – is to be established with the task of supervising all stages of the electoral process. The committee is chaired by the chief of the Supreme Constitutional Court, and consists of five senior judges, including i) the chief of the Supreme Constitutional Court, ii) the chief of Cairo’s court of cassation, iii) the oldest member among the deputy-chiefs of the supreme constitutional court; iv)  

8. the oldest member among the deputy-chiefs of the court of cassation, and v) the oldest member among the deputy-chiefs of State Council; plus five public figures, three of which to be chosen by the People’s Assembly, and two by the Shura Council. 

9. The President of the Republic is elected by 50-plus-one majority. If none of the candidates receives this required majority, the election is repeated after at least seven days between the two candidates who received the largest number of votes.⁷⁴ 

The proposed terms effectively excluded independents from competing with Mubarak or with any future NDP presidential candidate. With the NDP’s entrenched near-monopoly on membership in such bodies, would-be independents would have virtually no chance of obtaining approval of 250 members of the Parliament and local councils. In any case, the 5-percent-representation threshold would constitute another insuperable obstacle, as no opposition party had ever attained such a bloc of seats in recent years. 

In September 2005, the first “competitive” – though hardly free – presidential election ensued. There were nine candidates in addition to the predetermined winner, Mubarak. These were Noman Gomma of al-Wafd, Ayman Nour of al-Ghad, Usama Shaltut of al-Takaful, Ahmed al-Sabbahi of al-Umma, Wahid al-Oqsury of Egypt’s Arab Socialist, Rifaat al-Agroudy of the National Conciliation, Ibrahim Turk of the Democratic Unionist, Mamdouh Qinawi of the Constitutional, and Fawzy Ghazal of Egypt 2000. The outcome of the election was as expected, with Mubarak obtaining about 88 percent of the vote, followed by the candidate of the al-Ghad Party – who was arrested shortly afterward – with 8 percent, and the Wafd candidate with 3 percent. The old pattern of cosmetic “democratization” had remained fully intact. One month later, the 2005 general elections were held in three intervals. During the first interval, the elections were accompanied by an unprecedented level of violence that left 10 people dead and dozens injured. The violence escalated during the second and third phases, after the Muslim Brotherhood had managed to secure 34 parliamentary seats. Scores of polling stations were completely sealed off by large contingents of police to prevent opposition supporters from voting. Hundreds of machete and club wielding gangs were also directed by security agents to attack supporters of opposition candidates. The regime also cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood by arresting about 700 of its members and supporters. Despite these draconian measures, the election’s results came as a surprise to most observers and political analysts. The election resulted in 311 seats for the NDP, with a majority of 71.9 percent – the lowest since 1976. The elections yielded six seats for al-Wafd, two for al-Tagammu, one for al-Ghad, and one for al-Karama. Independents won 88 seats, but all of these were Muslim Brothers, as this was the only rubric under which they were permitted to contest the elections. In effect, it was the Brotherhood that won 88 seats (20 percent of the total), and thus emerged as the largest opposition party in Parliament. 

Repression and persecution of political dissidents now intensified, with the Muslim Brotherhood and judges as the main targets. In early March 2006, the regime arrested 20 members of the Brotherhood, including Mohamed Rashad El-Bayoumi, Professor of Geology at Cairo University and member of the Brotherhood’s Guidance Bureau, on charges of possessing anti-government publications. Additionally, dozens of Islamist students and professors from al-Azhar University were arrested for protesting the disqualification of Brotherhood-affiliated students as candidates in student union elections. The detention also included the Brotherhood Deputy Supreme Guide Mohammed Khayrat al-Shater. Similarly, the relationship between the regime and the judiciary soured when on March 6, 2006, Fathi Khalifa, the government-appointed president of the Court of Cassation, referred two senior judges in Alexandria for interrogation for allegedly accusing the Supreme Judicial Council of falsifying the 2005 general election results in favor of the ruling party. In April 2006, the government–judiciary confrontation escalated when two other senior judges accused the government of rigging the 2005 general elections and some of the members of the Court of Cassation of committing fraud or ignoring serious irregularities while supervising the elections. The Supreme Judicial Council denounced the accusations and referred the two judges to a disciplinary panel on charges of insulting the judiciary. The Supreme Council’s decision triggered a strong reaction by the Judges’ Club, which on April 27 held an extraordinary meeting in support of the two accused judges. The meeting concluded with a final statement insisting on genuine reform through free elections and on the abolition of all exceptional laws. 

In May 2006, thousands of Egyptians from different political positions took to the streets to protest the action against the two judges and demand real political reform. The demonstrations over the issue of the judges were met with overwhelming force. Large sections of central Cairo were sealed off to traffic, while state security forces assailed protesters. Hundreds of protesters were arrested, while others were severely beaten, including one judge. Legislation was drafted, ostensibly to ensure interdependence of the judiciary, but the deputy-chairman of the Court of Cessation, Councilor Ahmad Mar’i, described it as a “conspiracy” against the judiciary. In addition, the Ministry of Justice suspended all financial subsidies to the Judges’ Club to force its members to back down on demands for reform. The government’s onslaught did not stop there. Thirty-four articles of the Egyptian Constitution were amended in March 2007 in the name of modernizing it. For example, Articles 4, 12, 24, 30, 33, and 56 were amended to reflect the changed economic and social situation in Egypt since the 1970s. References to socialism, the alliance of working forces and the leading role of the public sector in development were eliminated.⁷⁵ Some of the amendments aimed at expanding the powers of the prime minister.⁷⁶ The amendments also stipulated that the prime minister must approve or be consulted with regard to the president’s exercise of his vast executive and quasi-legislative authorities, while others strengthened the Council, but the constitutional amendments also gave some powers to the Parliament.⁷⁷ The People’s Assembly gained the right to vote – article-by-article – on the general budget and withdraw confidence from the cabinet, in which case the president would have to accept the cabinet’s resignation.⁷⁸ These amendments, however, did not fundamentally alter the distribution of powers, because the president continued to enjoy sole authority over the appointment and dismissal of the prime minister and, more importantly, retained the authority to dissolve Parliament. 

 
The 2007 constitutional amendments were clearly designed to shore up executive power. The amendments added a third clause to Article 5, which stipulated that the Egyptian political system was based on party pluralism. The addition stipulated that “any political activity or political parties shall not be based on religious authority or foundation, or on any discrimination on the basis of race or gender.”⁷⁹ However, this was understood to give the regime the constitutional right to accuse any institution or civil organization of involvement in religiously inspired political activities. The clause was thus intended to curb the growing influence of the Muslim Brotherhood. Second, Article 62 was amended to allow for a change from a single-member district electoral system to a mixed one that “combines the individual district and party list systems in any ratio that it specifies.” This led to the narrowing of the margin available for candidates to run in the general elections as independents. And it further removed electoral opportunities for the Muslim Brotherhood, which depended exclusively on the individual candidacy system. Third, Article 88 was amended to minimize judicial scrutiny of the general elections. The amendment replaced the provision for judicial supervision with the establishment of a supreme supervisory commission whose membership includes, but is not limited to, current and former members of judicial bodies. However, it did not identify the broader monitoring functions of the new commission, and it did not provide guidelines for hundreds of auxiliary polling stations. This means that auxiliary stations would be replaced again under the supervision of state employees. The amendment also stipulated that the voting process would take place on a single day, thus making it practically impossible to rely primarily on members of the supervisory commission. Finally, Article 179 was amended to give the president and the security forces unprecedented powers to challenge provisions for freedoms and rights. The amendment gave the state the right to suspend proscriptions against arbitrary arrests and requirements for judicial warrants for home searches and technological surveillance of citizens. In addition, the president gained the right to refer cases of terrorism to exceptional courts, such as military or state security courts, negating Article 68 of the Constitution, which stipulated that citizens have the right to a “natural judge.”⁸⁰ All this led Amnesty International to describe the amendments as “the greatest erosion of human rights in 26 years.”⁸¹ Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, the Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program, asserted that such amendments 

would simply entrench the long-standing system of abuse under Egypt’s state of emergency powers and give the misuse of those powers bogus legitimacy…. Instead of putting an end to the secret detentions, enforced disappearances, torture and unfair trails before emergency and military courts, Egyptian MPs are now being asked to sign away even the constitutional protections against such human rights violations.⁸² 

The NDP took further steps to promote Gamal Mubarak. This process began in earnest in early 2006, when the young Mubarak was appointed Assistant Secretary General of the NDP, while he retained his post as Chairman of the party’s Policies Committee. In March, the state media portrayed him as a senior official when he opened a social rehabilitation installation in Cairo. In August one of his close associates, Husam al-Badrawi, admitted for the first time that Gamal Mubarak was a potential candidate to succeed his father. In an interview with the Wafd opposition newspaper, al-Badrawi explained that: 

The ruling party seeks to maintain power and present candidates for the presidency, whether it is President Mubarak or other figures who will succeed him in the future … [and] Gamal Mubarak is one of those figures, as long as this takes place within a legal framework and according to free presidential elections.⁸³ 

In September, the young Mubarak received significant endorsement from President George W. Bush, who praised him in the Wall Street Journal as the leader of “a new group of reformers who are now in government.” The same month, the NDP held its Fourth Annual Congress, in which Gamal overshadowed other senior party members, including the Secretary General himself, by playing the lead role in all discussions on domestic and foreign issues as if he already were president. 

Despite growing civil opposition to Gamal Mubarak’s succession, it seemed unlikely that opposition forces would be able to prevent it on their own. But it seemed possible that the military might be able to do so. This would mark a departure from the usual method of succession, which since the establishment of the republic in 1953 had always constituted a military prerogative (and with a military leader always being chosen). Despite the apparent demilitarization of Egyptian society over the last two decades, the military remained the most influential institution in the country. Accordingly, unless high-ranking military personnel united in supporting the younger Mubarak, his bid for the presidency could fail. 

Structural adjustment 

The rapidly increasing gap between rich and poor increasingly loomed as a major factor leading to the rise of Islamic militancy and the delegitimization of the regime. In fiscal 1993–94, Egypt ended the first stage of its structural adjustment program, initiated in 1991 by agreement with the IMF and the World Bank. Egypt agreed to embark on policies to lower inflation and to decrease the deficit in the budget and the balance of payment. Meanwhile, it would implement policies to improve the efficiency of the public sector and to privatize public assets. 

The structural adjustment program had some success in meeting these objectives. The deficit as a percentage of GNP decreased from 17 percent in 1989 to 3.5 percent in 1993, reducing inflation by half – from 21.2 to 11.1 percent in the same period. However, austerity measures came at a high cost to the middle and lower classes. According to a World Bank Report, annual real average individual income in Egypt fell from US$670 in the early 1960s to US$610 three decades later. And yet the government was simultaneously adhering to World Bank injunctions to minimize social subsidies to the poor for subsistence and education. Prices increased by almost 300 percent, excluding new taxes. New economic policies also led to higher unemployment, estimated by the World Bank in 1994 to be at 17.5 percent and by other sources as high as 20 percent. Unlike in wealthy countries, social insurance or social welfare does not cushion Egypt’s unemployment. The upper classes profited from corruption, arms sales commissions, widespread bribery, and commercial services. As if to add insult to injury, their wealth tends to be invested outside of Egypt, with a double indemnity for the country: domestic investment in developmental infrastructure is avoided, as are taxes. According to a study by Mohammad Hassanein Heikal in 1995, there were 50 individuals whose wealth amounted to or exceeded US$100–200 million, 100 between US$80 and $100 million, 150 between US$30 and $50 million, 350 between US$15 and $30 million, 2,800 between US$10 and $15 million, and 70,000 between US$5 and $10 million. Heikal indicated that these figures were probably underestimated. However, if he is correct, then over a 20-year period almost 1,000 individuals accumulated more than US$50 billion, more than Egypt’s foreign debt; and all of this accumulation occurred within the country through the increased value of estates, through monopolies on essential goods, or through acting as agents of international companies.⁸⁴ 

The sharp deterioration of economic conditions for the bulk of Egyptians over two decades led to the emergence, starting in 2007, of what has been referred to as the “new social strikes,”⁸⁵ as economically dissatisfied citizens carried out hundreds of these. Curiously, the strikes were largely apolitical, focused on the deterioration of wages and salaries.⁸⁶ In the beginning, they were limited to factory workers, especially in the textile industry in the governorate of Mahala Al-Kubra, but they spread later to the professionals, including public sector employees, university professors, school teachers, lawyers, doctors, pharmacists, and the like. The first and most noticeable wave of social strikes began in February 2007, when thousands of workers from the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company complex in Al-Mahala Al-Kubra occupied the factory and adjacent streets to demand a wage increase. The workers’ demands included overtime pay and increased wages and medical and transport services. Workers also insisted that the company’s board chairman be suspended pending investigation into the alleged misuse of funds and that union officials attached to the state-controlled General Federation of Trade Unions be impeached. The government conceded to these demands, thus inspiring workers in other industries across the country to do the same and leading to success in almost every confrontation. These strikes were not limited to the working class. Members of the professional sectors also used strikes in an attempt to improve their working conditions. For example, in November 2007, university professors began their own action to protest against poor salaries and the security forces’ intervention on campuses. Pharmacists, lawyers, and civil servants also followed suit.⁸⁷ 

At the economic and political level, Egypt was ossified. In April 2008, the cost of food staples doubled and incited protesters to storm “City Hall in Mahalla, burn[ing] tires in the street, smash[ing] chairs through shop windows…. The police responded with tear gas and detained more than 500 protestors.”⁸⁸ With the onset of the global economic crisis, the government used the distraction to continue jailing opposition figures, closely scrutinizing the internet, and jailing scofflaw internet “bloggers.”⁸⁹ Fundamental restrictions were again imposed on the democratic process prior to the 2008 municipal elections when 800 Muslim Brotherhood opposition figures were rounded up. The Brotherhood boycotted the tainted process, while the ruling party claimed 92 percent of the vote. 

Egyptian foreign policy under Mubarak 

Mubarak attempted – at least on a formal, publicized level – to minimize interactions between Egypt and Israel, especially after the latter’s invasion of Lebanon in the summer of 2006 and its reluctance to relinquish the Taba Strip. The opposition forces continued to call for severing relations and termination, or at least suspension, of the Camp David Accords. Mubarak’s reaction was to emphasize the centrality of the Palestine issue and his commitment to the treaties Egypt had signed. In response to Israel’s action in Lebanon, he recalled the Egyptian ambassador and called for an Arab summit to examine the predicament. Mubarak also directed the Egyptian ambassador not to return to Israel until Taba was returned and until Israel withdrew its forces from Lebanon. By early 1985, Egyptian–Israeli relations showed signs of improving as official visits were exchanged and Israel participated – symbolically – in the Cairo Book Fair. Of course, the peace treaty and dependence on US aid meant that Egypt was locked into continued close cooperation with Israel, but public coolness provided a means of mollifying Arab and Islamic feelings both within Egypt and in the broader region, which Israeli officials considered useful to them as well. It is clear now that the Mubarak regime provided an important asset to the Israelis through its willingness to cooperate closely in security matters and disrupting tunnels to the Gaza Strip. Extraordinarily low prices Israelis paid for Egyptian natural gas allowed kickbacks that enriched cronies of the Egyptian leader.⁹⁰ 

Since that time, relations continued their course, although Egypt was careful not to appear to be too close to Israel. Mubarak kept relations formal. By the late 1980s, the relationship focused on the issue of elections in the Occupied Territories. Although they disagreed on this issue, with each state trying to impose its proposals on both the Palestinians and the international community, there was continuing genuine cooperation on essential matters, notably joint security. However, Mubarak and the ruling elite saw the need to play this down in public, which even under the best circumstances could not be enthusiastic about ties with Israel. Mubarak also moved to enhance bilateral relations with Arab countries. In an interview, published in all of the daily newspapers he declared, “Egypt is an Arab country. We are neither Westerners nor Easterners,” further emphasizing that its return to the Arab fold was natural. Mubarak also ordered the cessation of propaganda attacks against other Arab regimes, even if they had attacked his regime. Officially, Mubarak held that any restoration of relations with Arab states should be based on an Arab initiative because they were the ones who initiated the break. Behind the scenes however, Egyptian diplomats and Mubarak worked feverishly to regain Egypt’s credibility. As a result, Egyptian troops on the Libyan border were relocated, and Mubarak cultivated ties with Oman and Jordan while emphasizing Egypt’s historic links with Sudan. Egypt began to show signs of regaining its role in the Arab and Islamic world when in 1984, its membership in the Organization of Islamic Conference was restored, 5 years after it had been suspended. Meanwhile, bilateral relations between Egypt and Arab and Muslim countries began to be reestablished. Moreover, in late 1987 the Arab League decided to give Arab countries the go-ahead to restore bilateral relations with Egypt, though this was a mere formality in that they had never been completely terminated. In February 1989, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and North Yemen established the Arab Cooperation Council, and by 1990 Egypt had entered into formal diplomatic relations with all of its Arab neighbors. 

A fundamental underlying factor in Cairo’s return to the Arab fold was the threat the Iranian Revolution posed to the status quo in the region, together with the fact that the severance of ties was largely a charade all along. Some of the Arab monarchies – all were US client regimes, a position they shared with Cairo – that condemned Sadat’s peace treaty had secretly collaborated with Israel all along but needed to provide themselves legitimacy by publicly opposing it. And now that the status quo was facing a new threat from Tehran, Mubarak’s Egypt and the monarchies needed each other more than ever before, eventually ending the charade. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq provided a special case. It had taken the strongest stand against Sadat’s policies, but now it was struggling for survival in its war with Iran. It needed both the monarchies and Egypt, and de facto cooperation inevitably soon made way for ending any pretense of a break with Cairo. Only after the end of the Iran–Iraq War did this rapprochement end, with the Iraqi conquest of Kuwait in 1990 bringing Egypt and the monarchies (and even Syria) into a new US-led war against Iraq. 

With the liberation of Kuwait in 1991 and the initiation of the Middle East peace process, Egypt’s political leadership pursued a more aggressive foreign policy, especially at the regional level, taking an active role in bilateral negotiations in the Arab–Israeli peace process. Egypt also became an active partner in international peacekeeping operations both inside and outside the region. Mubarak attempted to solidify regional political blocs, detach Egypt from its reputation of collaborating in certain US policies, and present Egypt as a sovereign entity, free from US suzerainty. The Madrid peace process, initiated by the United States after the 1991 Gulf War, allowed Egyptian representation only in the multilateral negotiations, which discussed general regional issues, and not in the bilateral peace negotiations. Egypt insisted on carving a vital role for itself in the bilateral talks because it was the only Arab party that had openly amicable relations with both Israel and the Arab countries involved in the process. In doing so, its role was a hybrid of mediator and partner. In some instances, it tried to mediate between the Israelis and the Palestinians or between Israelis and Syrians and, in other instances, it acted as a partner in adopting the Arab position, abandoning its previous “neutrality.” 

In this context, Mubarak occasionally met with Yitzhak Rabin, Hafez al-Assad, and Yasser Arafat whenever there was a deadlock in negotiations. It is also reported that Egypt decided not to interfere in the Israeli–Palestinian Oslo negotiations. Mubarak, at Arafat’s request, persuaded Rabin to add part of the West Bank to the self-rule area so that Arafat would not be accused of trading the West Bank for Gaza. So Jericho was also included in the Palestinian domain. Later on, Cairo hosted the Israeli–Palestinian negotiations on implementing the Declaration of Principles and was involved in last-minute negotiations to get the implementation agreement signed on May 4, 1994. 

Egypt had consulted closely with Syria as well. On December 1, 1994, Mubarak visited Syria to promote bilateral relations and to discuss the peace process with Assad. The Israeli reaction was to suggest that Egypt take a stronger stand for Arab-Israeli peace, illuminating Egypt’s significance in the process. Later that month, Egypt hosted a trilateral summit with Syria and Saudi Arabia to foster economic cooperation with Israel. The aim of the summit was to slow the normalization process with Israel until a comprehensive peace was achieved. Assad was concerned that the Arab states would end their economic boycott of Israel before it agreed to withdraw from the Golan Heights, leaving Syria in the diplomatic cold in peace negotiations. Egypt originally opened the door for normalization with Israel at Camp David and paid dearly with almost a decade as a pariah in the Arab world. Egypt pursued its active involvement in the peace process to convince the Western world, especially the United States, that it, not Israel, provided the key to stability and should not be excluded from reaping the economic benefits of peace or ignored when the alliances and interests were revised. In the upsurge of violence following Rabin’s assassination in November 1995 and the Palestinian elections in January 1996, Egypt again seized the chance to act as mediator. It hosted the March 1996 Summit of the Peacemakers in the Red Sea town of Sharm-al-Sheikh with US President Bill Clinton, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, and Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, as well as with King Hussein of Jordan and Yasser Arafat. While the leaders presented a united front in condemning terrorism, deep divisions were evident. Egypt took the opportunity to advance itself at Israel’s expense by blaming the spate of Hamas suicide bombings on Israeli intransigence and successfully isolated it in its endeavors to win a united condemnation of Iran for supporting terrorism. However, Syria and Lebanon – both key players – boycotted the conference. For Egypt, hosting the meeting was an end in itself, enabling its press and government to trumpet its return to regional prominence. Mubarak seized the opportunity to make further gains following the May 1996 election of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud government in Israel. In response to Arab concerns about the direction of the new hardline regime in Tel Aviv, Mubarak, King Hussein, and King Fahd of Saudi Arabia called for an Arab summit to be held in Cairo in late June. The meeting strengthened Egypt’s position, as did its continued efforts to maintain communication with Israel without expressing support for Likud policies. 

With the outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada in September 2000, relations between Egypt and Israel spiraled downward due to the latter’s excessive use of force against the Palestinians. In his comment on the assassination of Hamas leader Abdel-Azizi al-Rantizzi by Israeli forces, Mubarak depicted Sharon as “a butcher” who understood only the language of blood. Relations deteriorated further when Mubarak recalled the Egyptian ambassador in Tel Aviv in response to Israel’s escalation of force in the Palestinian territories. The deterioration of relations, however, was reversed as the two countries began to reach a common understanding on several grounds in the aftermath of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in March–April 2003. In that year, the Roadmap Peace Plan for the Palestinian–Israeli conflict was released by “the Quartet,” which included the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations. The Plan divided the resolution of the conflict into three phases, with the first one focusing on Palestinian reform, the recognition of Israel, and neutralizing the intifada. The second phase was to address Israel’s withdrawal from the Palestinian self-rule areas occupied after September 2000, while the third phase was expected to focus on establishing an interim Palestinian state and normalizing relations between Israel and the Arab states. In June 2003, an Arab-American summit was convened in Sharm el-Sheikh with the aim of securing Arab support for the US-sponsored roadmap. The summit was attended by President George W Bush and the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the new Palestinian Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas. 

The first significant development in Egyptian–Israeli relations came in late May 2004 when Mubarak and Sharon agreed to set up political, security, and economic committees to improve all aspects of their bilateral ties. The move was augmented with the conclusion of the biggest economic deal ever between the two countries: a contract worth $2.5 billion for Egypt to supply Israel with natural gas. Mubarak then surprised the Arab world by asserting that Sharon was the Palestinians’ “best chance for peace.” In June 2004, moreover, Mubarak affirmed Egypt’s readiness to help keep the peace in Gaza after Israel’s planned withdrawal. In December 2004, he sent both his intelligence chief and foreign minister on an official visit to Israel, during which both countries signed a protocol for the deployment of 750 Egyptian troops along the Egypt–Gaza border in advance of Israel’s planned withdrawal from the territory. The protocol, which was finalized in August 2005, would hold Egypt responsible for preventing arms smuggling into the Gaza Strip. 

The same month, Egypt took two important steps to improve relations with Israel. Egypt returned an imprisoned Israeli spy, Azzam Azzam, who had been in an Egyptian prison since 1996, in exchange for six Egyptian students arrested in Israel a few months earlier on suspicion of attempting to commit terrorist attacks. Subsequently, Egypt and Israel signed the “Qualified Industrial Zones” Agreement (QIZs), according to which Egyptian goods would gain free access to US markets if 11.7 percent of the content originated in Israel. The agreement, largely welcomed by the Egyptian business community, triggered opposition from a cross-section of Egyptian society, including lawmakers, economists and activists, on the basis that it would give Israel a de facto “veto power” over Egyptian exports to the United States. As described by Galal Amin, a prominent economist, the QIZ Agreement “has put Egyptian industries under the mercy of Israel, which could now decide upon which types of industries would be allowed to develop and flourish, and which ones would stagnate and diminish.”91 

Other measures embellished the new relationship. In February 2005, Egypt hosted the first Israeli–Palestinian summit in 4 years. Highlighting Egypt’s indispensable role in peace making, this came amid hopes of reviving the peace process in the wake of Arafat’s death and Abbas’s succession as chairman of the PA. More importantly, the summit brought Egypt and Israel closer together with the announcement that Egypt had agreed to restore diplomatic ties with Israel to the ambassadorial level. Later that year, Mubarak stunned the Egyptian and Arab public opinion amid the military confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah. In a joint statement with King Abdullah of Jordan, he blamed Hezbollah for the outbreak of the war, given his reference to “uncalculated adventures that do not serve the interests of the region.” The joint statement also made indirect reference to the need to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for deploying the Lebanese Army in southern Lebanon and disarming of Hezbollah. Mubarak’s remarks fueled angry demonstrations throughout the country in support of Hezbollah. Thousands waved Hezbollah flags and pictures of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, while demanding the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador and terminating all aspects of cooperation with the Jewish state. 

From 2007 onward, the Mubarak regime further antagonized Egyptian and Arab public opinion when Egypt joined Israel in imposing an economic blockade on the Gaza Strip, with the aim of toppling the Hamas government there. They blocked all crossings, including humanitarian supply lines. In December 2008, Israel launched a massive assault on Gaza, which ended with the deaths of 1,400 Palestinian civilians. Egypt constructed an underground barrier, in order to disrupt the tunnel that the 1.5 million residents of the Gaza Strip had come to rely on to move everything they needed–food, cars, cigarettes, and weapons.92 In response, Palestinians protested, as did Hezbollah, with Nasrallah telling a gathered crowd “Egypt should be condemned if it does not stop building the wall.”93 This development came in conjunction with Egypt’s prosecution of 26 men “suspected of links with Hezbollah and accused of planning attacks inside the country.”94 

Relations with the United States 

Egypt still maintained a special relationship with the United States. After all, it was the second largest recipient of US aid in the region. However, the Egyptian government demonstrated an inclination to be more independent of its American patron, mainly as a result of misperceptions between the two nations, beginning in late 1994. It was bad enough, from Egypt’s perspective, that the American press criticized Mubarak for violating UN sanctions against Libya, but this was followed by an American report on human rights abuses in Egypt. In both these instances, the Egyptian press and intellectuals attacked the Americans for distorting Egypt’s image and adopting double standards. The government was upset at US interference in domestic politics and denied the allegations. It was suspected that part of the reason for the reports was US retaliation for Egypt’s noncompliance with its position on the extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The treaty, signed in 1970, was up for renewal in April 1995, and Egypt declared that it would not approve any extension unless Israel joined. The Egyptian position was that Israel was justified in keeping its nuclear arsenal when it was at war with the Arab states, but now, as the region moved toward peace, Israel should accede to the treaty. Egypt tried to rally the Arab states and the developing world in opposition to the US call for an indefinite extension of the treaty. Nevertheless, the American policy succeeded, and the treaty was renewed indefinitely. 

The United States, however, found itself increasingly dependent on Egypt to help with the Arab-Israeli peace process of the mid-1990s. Egypt played the role of the regional chairman, hosting first the Summit of the Peacemakers and then the 1996 Arab Summit. It led the western-aligned Arab states in trying to arrive at a lasting settlement of the Palestinian issue. There was also domestic concern in the United States about the dubious value of the $3 billion per year in aid to Israel (most of it military assistance), especially if the peace process collapsed and a more militant Israel emerged. Egypt was now the best contact in the Middle East for the United States and had to be carefully supported lest other Arab states abandon the process. 

In 2004, Egyptian–United States relations improved with Ahmad Nazif’s appointment as prime minister. Several pro-Western business executives headed such ministries as industry, foreign trade, investment, agriculture, housing, and tourism. As strong advocates of economic liberalization and integration into the global economy, the new ministers helped to accelerate implementation of the World Bank and IMF structural adjustment programs. The new cabinet also eagerly supported other US policies, especially in the area of normalizing relations with Israel. This was manifested in the decision to sign the QIZ Agreement and exporting Egyptian natural gas to Israel at prices below international levels. Of course, the cabinet did not formulate broad policy, something left to the president and others in his circle and sometimes not even known to the public. According to Galal Amin, these forces tend to act as “mediators” between the United States and Egypt, with the mission of bringing the latter in line with American political and economic policies in the region.⁹⁵ 

Egypt and the 2003 US invasion of Iraq 

The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 marked a turning point in Egyptian–United States relations. The invasion posed a dilemma for the Egyptian regime, which opposed the use of military force against Iraq from the start. On the one hand, Egypt considered itself to be a close ally of the United States, a status that Cairo did not wish to jeopardize. On the other hand, Egypt had commitments to its Arab neighbors and did not want to be seen favoring the invasion of an Arab country. More importantly, the Egyptian regime had developed an important trading relationship with Iraq toward the end of the century. Notwithstanding the UN Security Council’s economic embargo on Iraq, the terms of trade with Iraq steadily favored Egypt following the launching of the UN oil-for-food program, which allowed Iraq to export oil and import basic necessities. In January 2001, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, came to Cairo – the highest-level such official visit since the 1991 Gulf War – and signed a pact calling for an immediate end to all customs barriers, which was realized shortly thereafter. In late 2001, the Egyptian minister of foreign trade brought a huge delegation to Baghdad to lay the foundation for strong cooperation between the two countries’ private sectors. A subsequent accord forged a working partnership in industrial, trade, and technical matters that bolstered the free trade agreement. Prior to the 2003 invasion, Egypt had become Iraq’s most important trading partner in the Arab world and the fifth biggest in the world, after Russia, China, and France. 

In response to domestic outrage over the looming US attack on Iraq, Egypt formally rejected the invasion in principle and refrained from taking part in any military action. In fact, Egypt’s cooperation in the war against Iraq, as in facilitating the movement of military supplies through its territory, provided an important ingredient in its success, while public criticism helped to preserve the country’s stability. Once it was complete, Egypt gradually shifted its position from condemnation to the acceptance of the new realities. Consequently, Egypt recognized the US-appointed governing council of Iraq, provided training for Iraqi security forces, and upgraded relations with the new Iraqi government by sending an ambassador to Baghdad in June 2005. 

2011–15: an aborted revolution? 

Beginning with demonstrations in January 2011, the Mubarak regime faced an uprising. Only 18 days later, Mubarak resigned, and for a moment only cynics denied that democracy was winning. But the forces that rose up found themselves outmaneuvered two and a half years later, with the ancien regime “reconstituted” in a “likely … more brutal and more adept” form⁹⁶ – and enjoying considerable popular support – under a new military strongman, likely portending greater upheaval to come. 

A long-standing explosive situation had awaited a spark that would start the explosion. Demonstrations against another US client dictator in Tunis – set off by revelations in WikiLeaks shortly earlier – provided inspiration. But an important study points to an informal network of activists going back to protests related to Palestine and Iraq nearly a decade earlier.⁹⁷ The April 6 Movement that grew out of the Mahalla al-Kubra strikes of 2008 used social media to announce mass protests in Tahrir (Liberation) Square in Cairo on January 25, 2011, calling for new parliamentary elections, a two-term limit for the president, an increase in the minimum wage, and other reforms.⁹⁸ This soon escalated to calls for Mubarak’s resignation. The Muslim Brethren – aside from some of its young members – did not initially participate in the demonstrations, but there were many Islamists in the crowds, although the young people who lit the spark were mainly secularists – socialists and liberals; some say that the Muslim Brothers were what provided the continuing momentum of the uprising once they fully joined the uprising 3 days later. Already, during 2010, the death of a young Egyptian in Alexandria from police torture had provided a potent symbol and a slogan: “We are all Kemal Sa’id” (the title of a Facebook page associated with a young Egyptian computer engineer, Wa’il Ghanem, who came to be seen in much of the world as the initiator of the uprising, particularly after being detained by the regime). But other recent events, notably the parliamentary elections in November 2010 – in which opposition parties adopted earlier calls for boycotting the contest following obvious rigging, leading to the NDP’s getting 97 percent of the vote⁹⁹ – that removed any remaining doubt that the country remained mired in dictatorship may have angered the public even more. When the few non-NDP deputies protested in December with a call to form a shadow cabinet, Mubarak jokingly advised them to go ahead and “amuse themselves.”¹⁰⁰ 

All of this came on top of anger and humiliation that had been building up. While Mubarak’s neoliberal policies – associated particularly with Gamal Mubarak – had produced considerable economic growth, the gains occurred at the top, as wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, notably corrupt people with the right connections to the regime.¹⁰¹ With economic slowdown starting in 2008 and accelerating in 2010,¹⁰² poverty increased. The army seems not to have opposed neoliberalism¹⁰³ but wanted to thwart the clique of business titans tied to the younger Mubarak – the “heir apparent” in the approaching presidential elections – that seemed to constitute a threat to its business enterprises (perhaps 40 percent of the economy) and their own cronies, including retired generals who head many of the largest businesses.¹⁰⁴ There were few jobs for those whose education had prepared them for the sort of middle-class status enjoyed by an earlier generation, which had guaranteed at least poorly paid government employment. Galal Amin vividly portrayed the scene he witnessed following a return from abroad in which university graduates in fields such as computer science were relegated to carrying suitcases or washing automobiles while groveling to survive on tips.¹⁰⁵ And there was a sense of humiliation over the regime’s servility to foreign powers, notably Israel and the United States. 

Mubarak resisted the popular demands and brutally attempted to suppress the protesters. One of the most dramatic events – dubbed “the Battle of the Camel” after a well-known clash in the seventh century – occurred on February 2 when thugs employed by the regime rode camels through Cairo to terrorize crowds of demonstrators, killing and wounding hundreds but pushing the opposition into an even more determined stance. Washington – as well as Israel and the other authoritarian Arab regimes – was aghast over the catastrophe it feared was befalling this important client regime and the possibility that a more nationalist government – whether Islamist or secular – would rise from these events. But the United States soon calculated that Mubarak was a lost cause and perhaps found it difficult to rationalize long-standing rhetoric about democracy with continued support for an obviously hated dictator’s intensified suppression, and so the Obama administration called for his resignation. Washington expected Mubarak to be succeeded – starting a “transition” – by Omar Suleiman, head of the secret police.¹⁰⁶ He was a key figure in the repressive apparatus and the main link for cooperation with Israel and the United States. Just before his departure, Mubarak appointed Suleiman to the heretofore-vacant vice presidency (with the possibility that he would temporarily occupy the presidency in preparation for new elections, if Mubarak resigned), a move that the opposition totally rejected, leading to the announcement (by Suleiman) on February 11 of Mubarak’s resignation and transfer of power to the military. Widely touted as a step toward democracy, this really amounted to a military coup. 

The armed forces had begun to signal that they were with the demonstrators against Mubarak. And placards rose among the crowds proclaiming that “The people and the army are one hand.” The main opposition groups agreed to allow the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), headed by Field Marshall Muhammad Tantawi (a longtime pillar of the old order), to take charge of the transition from Mubarak’s dictatorship. A temporary constitution was adopted, scheduled to be replaced by one to be drawn up by an assembly chosen by Parliament following new elections. The revolutionaries were widely applauded as having won. But after a year, Amin wrote about how odd and confusing events were and that he had a feeling that some sort of “moving images” had tricked the public into thinking a revolution had occurred.¹⁰⁷ While many exulted in the apparent victory of democracy over autocracy, particularly as they saw the former president and his sons brought to court in cages, others feared that they had witnessed only a clever deception carried out by one faction of the old ruling elite. Some realized that even free elections likely would leave the army ruling behind the scenes or at least putting limits, explicit or tacit, on future governments (as in Türkiye throughout the late twentieth century). Unlike some of the secular, leftist groups, the Muslim Brotherhood apparently calculated that its candidates could win democratic elections and eventually establish control of the military. 

Although SCAF remained in control for the “transition,” the country experienced a whole series of authentically democratic elections. Under a revised electoral law providing for election by majority vote for two-thirds of the seats (with runoffs where no one received a majority in the first round) and one-third by proportional representation (with party lists), voting for the 508-member People’s Assembly (except for 10 members to be appointed later), elections occurred in three stages during November 2011 to January 2012, with elections for the Consultative Council following in January to February 2012. The top administrative court, the Council of State, dissolved the NDP, leaving the field free for the emergence of numerous political parties competing in the parliamentary elections. And in any case the local notables, who had aligned with Mubarak and had been able to win seats through doling out patronage to the poor, now found themselves both discredited and lacking rewards to offer their former clients.¹⁰⁸ 

Contrary to widespread initial expectations that secular parties would dominate the results, it was the Islamist groups that won a landslide. The most successful non-Islamist party proved to be the Wafd, which got a mere 7.6 percent of the seats, apparently based on the residual influence of some pre-1952 landlords.¹⁰⁹ The new Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) established by the Muslim Brothers won 47.2 percent of the seats. As one important study shows, the FJP’s campaign emphasized economic issues, and voters perceived it as being leftist, that is, committed to a more equal distribution of wealth, although there is reason to think that it too accepted capitalism and globalization. Furthermore, it and other Islamist parties were able to use religious networks to spread their message, whereas the country’s level of economic development, the predominance of the informal sector of the economy, and the longtime repression of independent labor unions deprived socialist groups of comparable opportunities to compete.¹¹⁰ 

But several other Islamist groups entered the fray, notably from among the Salafist movement – ultraorthodox Muslims – known for their hostility to both Sufism and Shi’ites and influenced by the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia. This movement had been growing during recent decades, apparently because of the flood of Egyptians working in the kingdom and of Saudi financial support for religious activities in Egypt. The Salafists had demonstrated the kind of quietism characteristic of many traditional Muslim theologians that made them supporters of the existing regime. But now, as free elections approached, Salafists – with Saudi encouragement,¹¹¹ as part of a strategy aimed at undermining the Muslim Brothers and the now-renewed threat confronting all Arab autocracies – formed several political parties, the most important of which was the Nour (Light) Party (NP), whose coalition won about 25 percent of the seats, second only to the FJP. Thus these two Islamist groups controlled nearly three-fourths of the membership of the Peoples’ Assembly. But far from representing a cohesive bloc of like-minded deputies, they were quite different from each other, as became particularly obvious after the NP opposed the FJP in subsequent clashes with non-Islamist factions, despite the latter’s attempts to mollify it through such means as not standing up to its sectarianism and commitment to the status quo. 

A highly competitive campaign for the presidency (although with several potential candidates rejected) ensued in 2012, with 13 candidates, including five main ones, vying for the office. Since SCAF rejected Khairat al-Shater, the preferred FJP candidate, on grounds of having been convicted of political offenses during the Mubarak era, the “less charismatic” Muhammad Morsi, an engineering professor educated in the United States and a former member of Parliament whose reelection had been stolen 2 years earlier, took his place.¹¹² Abdul Moneim Abul-Futouh, a former member of the Brotherhood but regarded as “more liberal,” provided another Islamist alternative. On the left was Hamdeen Sabbahi, considered a “Nasserite.” Representing holdovers from the ancien regime were Ahmad Shafiq, a former air force commander who had served as Mubarak’s last prime minister, and Amr Moussa, former Secretary General of the Arab League and foreign minister under Mubarak. Demonstrating an ominous level of polarization, Morsi came out on top with 25 percent of the vote but with Shafiq a close second choice (24 percent). Abul-Fatouh got 18 percent and Moussa 14 percent. In the runoff election the following month that provided a stark choice between the Brotherhood and a Mubarak lieutenant, in which a record (for Egypt) 51 percent of the eligible voters participated, Morsi prevailed, though with only 51.73 percent compared with 48.27 percent for Shafiq. 

Much of the outcome of elections was voided in short order. Two weeks before Morsi took office, the Supreme Constitutional Court – a holdover from the Mubarak era – annulled the People’s Assembly on technical grounds, and SCAF assumed legislative power for itself. SCAF also deprived the new president of most of his constitutional authority. The president’s relationship with the military seemed to change in August 2012, as Morsi retired the members of SCAF in favor of younger officers. Tantawi’s position as defense minister was assigned to General Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi, who was thought to be more favorable to the revolution (and possibly, according to some observers, an Islamist), but subsequent events proved this speculation wrong. The remnants of the old order – coming to be known as the “deep state” – were never uprooted. The security police,¹¹³ whose leaders later proudly told how they had defied the former FJP president, were intact and again and again demonstrated that they could allow chaos to reign in order to undermine the new president. The military forces remained the ultimate arbiter of power even after Morsi took office. Tantawi, and later, Sisi headed the Defense Ministry, and even the constitution adopted in 2012 left the armed forces officially out of the government’s control, allowing them unimpaired control over their budget and industrial enterprises. Although the judiciary sometimes gave the appearance of having a degree of independence even during the Mubarak era, judges also represented another key “remnant” of the past. 

Because a new constitution drawn up by a Constituent Assembly representing different factions roughly in proportion to the segment of the vote they had received contained a few provisions objectionable to non-Islamists (who boycotted its final sessions), the Supreme Constitutional Court was expected to cancel the upcoming plebiscite. To thwart such a judicial coup, Morsi made a declaration – later qualified – barring any judicial action suspending or canceling presidential decrees until a new People’s Assembly was elected or dissolving either the Consultative Council or the Constituent Assembly and giving himself authority to take any action “to protect the country or the goals of the revolution.”¹¹⁴ His critics demonized this as a demonstration of blatant authoritarianism, while others saw his action as necessary to protect the democratization process from being destroyed by the “holdover” judiciary.¹¹⁵ They also accused him of pursuing his own party’s policies despite his narrow majority in the election, evoking a response from one scholarly observer that “that by and large is how politics works in liberal democracies” regardless of the winning coalition’s margin of victory.¹¹⁶ In reality, Morsi, as Ayman Nour later related, demonstrated flexibility, agreeing in April 2013 to have him head a new government and appoint whomever he chose as ministers, and it was Sisi who vetoed the proposal.¹¹⁷ 

Much seemed not to change, whether because of the new president’s preferences or because he was hamstrung by domestic and international constraints and was only biding his time. Despite the Muslim Brethren’s long time commitment to anti-imperialism and particularly to opposing Zionism, any attempt immediately to reverse Egypt’s peace with Israel – which now was reaffirmed – would have been extremely difficult even if the Egyptian military had not at least implicitly set limits on such an idea and if the country had not been so dependent on aid from Washington and US client regimes in the Arab world. While some observers thought an MB-led Egypt would join the “Axis of Resistance,” that proved unrealistic, although there were moves in the direction of rapprochement with Iran, but the president’s first foreign visit was to Saudi Arabia, and although he briefly flew to Tehran for a Nonaligned Conference summit, he went out of his way to undiplomatically contradict Shi’ite doctrines regarding seventh century events (possibly motivated by the need to appease the NP at home). In any case, the outbreak of revolt against the Assad regime in Syria, one that widely came to be seen through sectarian lenses, and support for Assad by both Iran and the Shi’ite Lebanese Hezbollah reinforced Morsi’s reasons for keeping them at arm’s length. Morsi did demonstrate a desire to embrace the Palestinian Hamas, as in relaxing the blockade that Mubarak and the Israelis had imposed on Gaza, and Egyptian mediation during the Israeli assault on Gaza in November 2012 demonstrated that some change had occurred, but he was unable to go further. 

Neither was there any drastic change in domestic policies. There was no attempt to turn Egypt into a full-fledged Islamic state. The new constitution scarcely went beyond previous declarations that the principles of the Sharia are the main source of Egyptian law, although one article specifically mentioned “Sunni schools of thought,” possibly a concession to the NP (sectarian legal differences, in any case, are largely trivial). A provision that questions about Islamic law would be referred to senior scholars at al-Azhar (noted for subservience to rulers and, at least for now, another part of the “remnant”) for nonbinding opinions barely departed from the attention other Egyptian rulers have given to legitimizing their policies in religious terms. From the early days of the struggle against Mubarak, there were outbreaks of violence. The army killed 25 people in October 2011 while suppressing demonstrations against an earlier attack on a Coptic church, followed by other crackdowns by the army and police during subsequent months. Sinai emerged as a special hotspot, as then al-Qa’ida-affiliated Ansar Bait al-Maqdis guerrillas (they transferred their formal allegiance to ISIS in 2014), spawned by decades of neglect repeatedly disrupted the pipeline providing gas to Israel. August 2012 witnessed a guerrilla attack across the Israeli border, followed by the six Egyptian soldiers being killed by the Israelis, leading to a mob assault on the Israeli embassy in Cairo. Mobs attacked Copts and Shi’ites on several occasions; the police did not seem to provide much protection, and although Morsi condemned such acts, his opponents blamed him. 

The economy declined further. Tourism plummeted from the beginning of the uprising, and capital fled the country. Aside from Qatar, whose $6 billion investment was returned following the 2013 counterrevolution,¹¹⁸ the oil-rich monarchies failed to provide aid during this period of Brotherhood rule. Foreign currency reserves nearly vanished by early 2013, and the value of the Egyptian pound plummeted. Cairo’s quest for a $4.8 billion loan from the IMF stalled in the face of its being conditioned by drastic cuts in food and fuel subsidies. Power blackouts and fuel shortages brought despair by the summer of 2013. In fact, victory in national elections under impossible circumstances turned into a curse. Whoever had been in office could not have avoided failure under such circumstances, and it has been suggested that even seeking victory demonstrated the Brothers’ ineptness.¹¹⁹ Disillusionment grew, apparently not because of an ideological shift against Islamism but because of the deteriorating economy.¹²⁰ Actually, a Pew poll¹²¹ conducted in May 2013 showed that 63 percent of Egyptians (down from 75 percent 2 years earlier) expressed a positive attitude toward the Muslim Brotherhood and that a small majority felt the same way toward the FJP and Morsi. But confidence shrank as economic problems – some allegedly planned by the “remnants” and their Saudi and Emeriti allies – grew worse. 

Analogous, as one political scientist suggested,¹²² to the way liberals who participated in the overthrow of monarchy in France in 1848 but changed their minds when they realized that democracy meant domination by the working class, secular forces who had helped to overthrow Mubarak now united with ancien regime elements to restore Egypt’s autocracy (while rationalizing that they were putting democratization back on track). A new organization, Tamarod (Rebellion), quickly emerged in April that united motley groups – ranging from liberals to the “remnant” and including the NP – to force Morsi out of office. The group allegedly was financed by big businessman and Mubarak crony, Naguib Sawaris – who later boasted that the leaders of Tamarod did not know about his role – and organized with the help of remnant elements in the Ministry of Interior and “top generals” and provided with massive media exposure.¹²³ And a video made public in 2015 seemed to show that the UAE collaborated with the Egyptian Defense Ministry by providing money and help to organize Tamarod.¹²⁴ Shortly after the military takeover, two New York Times correspondents concluded that “the immediate apparently miraculous end to the crippling energy shortages” as well as the reemergence of the police following Morsi’s ouster “seems to show the significant role” of ancien regime remnants in the crisis.¹²⁵ The Arab monarchies (except for Qatar) and Israel looked on with approval, with the monarchies ready to extend massive financial aid following Morsi’s overthrow, and Egyptian opponents of the FJP coordinated their plans with the Saudis.¹²⁶ Tamarod announced that 22.2 million people – apparently wildly exaggerated, or so skeptics say – had signed a petition calling for Morsi’s removal. His opponents presented this as essentially the equivalent to a popular vote to unseat him. Fuel shortages and power cuts and shortages of gasoline, as well as increased crime resulting from police inactivity, allegedly were planned by the ministry of the interior.¹²⁷ 

Amid these widespread expressions of opposition, the military in effect exploited the chaos and carried out the most brutal coup d’état in republican Egypt on July 3, 2013 (more accurately, a consolidation coup, considering the continuing military hold on power since 2011), while loudly proclaiming that popular backing meant the coup was not a military takeover. The president was deposed, imprisoned, and subjected to a long list of charges, including escape from prison at the end of the Mubarak era, abuse of powers, ordering killings, and even sharing state secrets with Qatar and Iran and cooperating with Hamas, with the prosecutor calling for the death penalty. Brought before a court in November 2013, Morsi spoke with such defiance that the trial adjourned in fear that he would gain a heroic image.¹²⁸ Other leading Muslim Brothers were under arrest too, and the organization was outlawed (as a “terrorist” organization, with implications that it was the same as its extremist alternatives) and its assets confiscated. 

Following elections held in 2014 that proved hardly more competitive than those under Mubarak, Sisi took office as the new president. While few expected a serious presidential election, there was one other candidate, the Nasserite Sabbahi, to provide an argument that this was an authentic contest, but Sisi obtained 96.9 percent of the vote, at least according to the official report. The suppressed Muslim Brothers called for a boycott, which – along with a widespread sense that the vote was a farce – helped to keep the participation rate so low that the regime was embarrassed and alarmed. When so few voters showed up the first day of the election, it took extraordinary means to increase the turnout. The second day was declared a national holiday so as to remove work as an obstacle, and when that proved inadequate, the election was suddenly extended one additional day and with threats of fines for non-voters, but participation remained low (46 percent, according to official announcements but merely 38.6 percent by a more objective estimate).¹²⁹ As the official spin had it, Sisi still got more votes than had Morsi in the first round in 2012, but that was in a free election, with multiple candidates and a participation rate of 52 percent. In reality, all evidence points to a deeply polarized public in which no leader can claim overall legitimacy and in which those in power – notably the enemies of the Muslim Brotherhood – would not tolerate a free election which might remove them from office. 

With parliamentary elections scheduled for 2014 (and then delayed), a new electoral law was issued. Providing for 420 members of the People’s Assembly to be chosen from single-member districts and only 120 from party lists (multimember districts, with a majority required), this was expected to perpetuate old patterns in which local notables from wealthy families would predominate and – much as under Mubarak – would serve as conduits for “government favor to provide services to their constituencies or to line their own pockets.”¹³⁰ Few expected the regime to face a nondocile representative body. With elections eventually scheduled for March 2015, dozens of political parties were approved to compete for seats, and more than 7.5 thousand candidates had registered, but, in late February, the Supreme Constitutional Court declared the electoral rules invalid, resulting in another delay, even evoking suggestions that the ruling elite now and in the past had purposely designed flaws in order to have subservient judges make such decisions at the rulers’ convenience.¹³¹ A Zogby poll in September 2013 showed that confidence in Morsi and Sisi already was almost even (44 versus 46 percent, respectively, while a slight majority expressed disapproval of the recent military putsch.¹³² A Pew poll conducted shortly before the 2014 election showed a 42-percent favorable (and a 45-percent unfavorable) rating for the now-deposed-and-imprisoned Morsi (compared with 53 percent shortly before the 2013 coup d’état). And 54 percent gave Sisi a favorable rating of 45 percent. (It should be noted that earlier polls, at least in 2012, grossly underestimated Muslim Brothers support, presumably reflecting the overrepresentation of urban, Westernized, affluent sectors of the population.)¹³³ 

The counter-revolutionary regime proceeded with a reign of terror.¹³⁴ In what a prominent human rights advocate dubbed “a crime against humanity” and “another Tiananmen Square,” protesters (overwhelmingly peaceful) in Rabi’a Square in Cairo were “systematically” gunned down, with at least 817 and perhaps more than a thousand people killed.¹³⁵ In several other cases, dozens of protesters succumbed to similar gunfire. The FJP and the Muslim Brotherhood were outlawed, and their supporters put under the blanket rubric of “terrorists.” Following an attack on a police station in which a policeman was killed, a judge – demonstrating only one of the now-commonplace examples of the “Kafkaesque legal process”¹³⁶ – pronounced Egypt’s international alignment following the Sisi coup returned to those of the Mubarak era, though more openly. Cooperation with Israel in security matters grew closer, notably in closing tunnels to the Gaza Strip. With conflict between Israel and the Palestinians of Gaza intensifying in July 2014, the Sisi regime, which had succeeded in destroying the bulk of tunnels to Sinai that the Hamas-ruled territory depended on, seemed “quite happy to see [Hamas] pulverized” and, at least initially, demonstrated no desire to “broker a cease-fire,”¹³⁷ and when it eventually proposed one, the terms were such that Israel, and not Hamas, found it acceptable. Along with most other Arab regimes, Cairo seemed clearly to be on the side of Israel as it bombed and invaded Gaza, although it remained unclear how long repression could keep the lid on growing public concern.¹³⁸ When the Egyptian government took on the role of “mediator,” it demonstrated that now there existed “a strong Egyptian-Israeli alliance,” as it clearly favored Israeli demands and opposed the Gazans’ effort to obtain relief from economic strangulation, which the cease-fire 2 years earlier had provided for in principle but which never was implemented.¹³⁹ During the course of cease-fire talks in Cairo, Egypt later reportedly supported some limited steps to ease the blockade of Gaza but continued to stand primarily on the side of the Israelis. In keeping with this hostility to Hamas, Egypt’s highest court declared in 2015 that the Palestinian group’s armed branch is a “terrorist organization.” 

Aid to the tune of $12 billion pledged by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE after the coup – $5.8 billion more by the following January and then $20 billion the following June – helped the regime demonstrate some temporary improvement in economic conditions. Much of this was in the form of money transfer. There was speculation that the continuation of this largesse was in danger following the release of tapes purportedly revealing contemptuous statements by Sisi about some of the Gulf monarchs,¹⁴⁰ but the crucial role of the Egyptian ruler in suppressing revolutionary forces in the region seemed to preclude such a shift in their policies. But it was not clear how long this would suffice to keep the pressure cooker lid on as the economic conditions that led to the 2011 uprising remained fundamentally unchanged amid new levels of suppression that extended to non-Islamists, including the liberals and socialists who had welcomed the 2013 coup.¹⁴¹ A decision in July 2014 to end or reduce subsidies, particularly for gasoline, promised relief from the growing governmental budget deficit. It was meant to facilitate a long-sought IMF loan, while also raising prices for basic goods.¹⁴² With an eye on promoting economic growth, the Sisi regime announced plans for a major enlargement of the Suez Canal and for enhancing the effectiveness of tax collection, but the outcome remained uncertain. The economic growth rate for fiscal year 2014 remained at a mere 2.2 percent.¹⁴³ In 2014, the IMF projected slight improvement in GNP but higher rates of inflation, a more unfavorable current account balance, and higher unemployment.¹⁴⁴ Tourism, long a major source of income (and of hard currency), had dropped precipitously following the 2011 uprising, and registered only slight improvement by 2015. Attempts to attract foreign private capital – including laws favoring multinational corporations vis-à-vis workers and NGOs and a conference planned for 2015 at which projects totaling $20 billion are scheduled to be promoted – seemed unrealistic, notably in the face of the government’s continuing reputation for corruption.¹⁴⁵ 

Egypt’s perennial concern with other parts of the African continent took some new turns under Sisi’s rule. Dependence on the Nile for its life has long resulted in fear that upstream countries would take greater share of water. The construction of the Renaissance Dam in Ethiopia, scheduled for completion in 2017, provided a source of tension during the Mubarak era and after, when unrealistic mention of possible “war” with Ethiopia occurred. Under Sisi, Egyptian policy seems to have come to terms with this reality, at least in the short run, although the issue is far from being shelved.¹⁴⁶ The chaos in Libya following the overthrow of Muammar al-Qaddafi’s regime has led to Egyptian involvement. Cairo has supported former General Khalifa Hifter, whose coup in 2014 represented an attempt to end the conflict among militant groups, some of which have declared allegiance to ISIS. This has led to Egyptian airstrikes in Libya during 2014–15. 

Relations with Washington cooled, at least on the surface, as the Obama administration criticized the coup – but without daring to use the word lest military aid automatically be ended, as US law provided. Some weapons deliveries and other aid were delayed for a while, but US Secretary of State John Kerry, in a visit to Cairo 4 months after the coup announced that all this was being resumed, complimenting Sisi for implementing his “road map” to democracy, just as the now-imprisoned elected president was scheduled to be tried on charges of murder.¹⁴⁷ All of this came amid propagation of an angry nationalistic narrative among Sisi backers claiming that Washington had favored the Muslim Brethren and Islamists generally. In fact, it had been wary of their ultimate objectives (although there were some who proposed that Washington could accept moderate Islamism, at least for a while). Though without evidence, some observers have suggested that elements of the US government may secretly have supported the coup.¹⁴⁸ In any case, the US lip service to criticizing the event provided a legitimacy resource for the new strongman, whose renewed alignment with the Arab oil monarchies and Israel paralleled US concerns, making Washington objectively a supporter of the coup-makers, rhetoric notwithstanding. All the while, the regime whipped up nationalism and a cult of treating the new strongman as a new Nasser that won ecstatic responses among supporters of the ancien regime as critics were cowed into silence. One astute observer concluded that a better analogy to this “banal” want-to-be Nasser could be found in Ismael Sidqi, the ruthless royalist strongman of the 1930s.¹⁴⁹ 

In its 2015 report, Human Rights Watch declared: “Egypt’s 2014 constitution permits military trials for civilians, and on October 27, 2014, al-Sisi issued a decree expanding military court jurisdiction to cover crimes that occur on any public, state-owned, or ‘vital’ property. Since the decree, prosecutors have referred at least 455 people – the vast majority of them Brotherhood members – to military court.” It added that “at least 90 people died in local police stations and security directorates in the governorates of Cairo and Giza alone in 2014 … a 38 percent increase from the year before.”¹⁵⁰ 

In 2015, a newly elected Assembly passed a package of laws that reduced margins of public freedoms and gave an upper hand to the government to consolidate its control. The low voter turnout and the large number of political parties boycotting the elections reflected that large segments of the Egyptian population were dissatisfied with the running of the country affairs, or they were disappointed that their ability to democratically change the course of events was greatly reduced. 

Sisi aimed at boosting national sentiments when he announced mega infrastructure projects such as an US$8 billion project to expand the Suez Canal to allow for two-way traffic along part of the route, as well as for larger vessels overall, in an attempt to increase the volume of shipments handled by the Canal and increase financial revenues.¹⁵¹ Egypt’s revenue from the Canal is estimated to be US$5 billion annually. 

Another mega project that Sisi announced was the construction of a new capital just east of Cairo to house the government aiming to ease the overpopulation and congestion in the capital city. In January 2019, he inaugurated the largest mosque in Egypt and the largest cathedral in the Middle East in the New Administrative Capital (NAC), a temporary name for the newly built area. In 2016, a US$12 billion 3-year loan package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was announced to assist in dealing with government budget deficits. 

The same year, Sisi transferred sovereignty over two islands (Tiran and Sanafir) in the Red Sea east of Sharm el-Sheikh to Saudi Arabia. Though uninhabited, the two islands are of strategic location on the shipping route between the Red Sea and the Israeli port of Eilat and had been the focal point of regional tensions for decades. After the deal was signed by Sisi and adopted by the Assembly, protests broke out against the surrender of sovereignty.¹⁵² 

In March 2018, Sisi ran for reelection as president. He was contested by Moussa Mustapha Moussa from the El-Ghad Party. With only 44 percent of eligible voters casting ballots, Sisi won 21,835,387 votes (97.08 percent), against 656,534 (2.92 percent) for Moussa. The race had been reduced to two candidates after the withdrawal of several others who had expressed interest but declined to run. Two of the prominent potential candidates were former Chief of Staff Sami Anan and former Prime Minister Ahmad Chafic, who used to live in the United Arab Emirates. The latter announced he was not allowed at the beginning to leave the UAE, and when allowed, he was obliged to stay in a hotel in Cairo for almost a month until he announced his withdrawal from the race. Other candidates included Ahmad Kanousa, Mohammed Anwar Esmat Sadat (nephew of former President Anwar Sadat), and Khaled Ali. Candidates withdrew one after the other until the race was between only Sisi and Moussa.¹⁵³ 

In April 2019, the Assembly approved constitutional amendments that extended Sisi’s presidency to make it a 6-year term instead of five and to allow him to run for a new term in 2024, allowing him the possibility to stay on in office until 2030.¹⁵⁴  

The Islamist threat 

Although Egypt had intermittently witnessed terrorist attacks in several areas, they multiplied after the 2011 revolution, especially in the Sinai area. Islamist fighters attacked an army outpost in the area killing 16 soldiers in August 2012. These militant groups organized themselves under the name “Ansar Beit el-Maqdis (ABM)” and executed numerous attacks. Starting in November 2014, the group announced its allegiance to ISIS and pledged to continue its attacks. 

[T]the group’s stated goal from 2011 to 2013 was to free Jerusalem from Western influence and rid Egypt of any Israeli presence. However, after the fall of Mohammed Morsi’s government in 2013, ABM shifted its focus to seek revenge against the Egyptian police and security forces for their violent crackdown on Islamist dissidents…. In October 2014, the Egyptian military began to crack down on Wilayat Sinai in counter-terror operations. To avoid direct contact with the better-equipped Egyptian army, Wilayat Sinai turned to attacks via remote targeting and booby-trapping, such as roadside bombs.¹⁵⁵ 

In 2014 the group announced its affiliation with the Islamic State and changed its name to Sinai Province. Believed to have between 1,000 and 1,500 active members, it expanded outside Sinai by creating cells in some governorates, including Cairo and Giza.¹⁵⁶ 

The state of emergency was again renewed after suicide bombers killed dozens at two churches on Palm Sunday in April 2017. That November, mosques in Bir al-Abed village in Northern Sinai were attacked, killing 305. Army and the security forces continued their crackdown on the militant groups. 

Egypt’s foreign policy under Sisi 

President Sisi maintained good relations with the West, the United States in particular, and he made efforts to play an active role in the conflicts in Syria, Libya, and Yemen in coordination with the United States, prompting President Trump to describe Sisi as his favorite dictator.¹⁵⁷ He also worked on developing ties with African states. 

Regarding the Syrian conflict, Egypt hosted several meetings for the Syrian Opposition groups, most prominently the “Cairo Conference of Syrian Opposition” in January 2015. However, the Egyptian position leaned more toward supporting Bashar al-Assad, especially after the Russian intervention in Syria in September 2015. Sisi welcomed this intervention, saying Egypt supported other countries in their fight with extremist groups, including Syria.¹⁵⁸ 

As for Libya, with which Egypt shares a 1,115 km border, maintaining stability is also a national security interest. The official position of Egypt rotates around “three principles namely; ‘respecting unity and sovereignty of Libya and integrity of its territories, non-interference in Libya’s internal affairs and maintaining its political independence’ as well as commitment to the comprehensive dialogue and non-violence.”¹⁵⁹ 

Cairo had hosted several meetings on Libya, and actively participated in conferences elsewhere to resolve the Libyan crisis and put an end to its decade-long civil war. The “Cairo Declaration” of June 6, 2020, aimed at reaching a cease-fire in Libya. In his speech in the presence of Speaker of the Libyan House of Representatives Counselor Aguila Saleh and Commander-in-Chief of the Libyan Armed Forces Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, who had come to Cairo for negotiations, Sisi stressed the seriousness of the “current critical situation,” warned “against insistence of any party on continuation of searching for a military solution,” and that Egypt rejected “all sorts of escalation.”¹⁶⁰ 

Although the Declaration gained oral support from several Arab and international players for the initiative, Western opinion, such as this view published by The Atlantic Council, tended to be less supportive: 

But behind the firm desire to enforce the Libyan people’s goals of stability and development and preserve the country’s sovereignty, as Sisi stated, the Cairo initiative reveals the real intention of the East-based bloc. This declaration, in addition to establishing a general 48-hour ceasefire and the resumption of the 5+5 Libyan Joint Military Commission under the auspices of the UN, requires the militias to disband and hand over their weapons to the LAAF – considered Libya’s only security provider by the plan’s author. Furthermore, it calls for the expulsion of foreign mercenaries from the country, referring only to those that are helping the GNA’s military effort and not to the many Sudanese mercenaries fighting for Haftar. Cairo’s decision raises many doubts, as this initiative is, basically, a copy of previous mediation agreements that ended in failure and Cairo is, now, seeking the UN’s protection after having ignored it for a long time. Moreover, this declaration would not just annul fourteen months of war, but would leave unresolved all those controversial points that derailed every previous diplomatic attempt.¹⁶¹ 

Since the Egyptian government was highly antagonistic to the Muslim Brotherhood, which it had dissolved, it joined forces at the foreign policy level with other Arab nations sharing its approach, specifically Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates: 

[D]omestic politics – most notably Sisi’s anti-Islamist political agenda and years-long effort to remove the Muslim Brotherhood from political, social, and economic life in Egypt – shaped the contours of the country’s foreign policy. The biggest manifestation of this was Egypt’s decision to join an alliance that was led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and that sought to contain Iran and ‘Islamist-friendly’ countries such as Qatar and Turkey. The new alliance brought with it considerable Emirati and Saudi financial support for Egypt, at a time when the Egyptian economy was on the ropes. But the partnership was also underpinned by a shared ideology defined by the aim of empowering authoritarians and ousting political Islam across the region. While this vision was shared by Saudi Arabia, it was most fervently pursued by Sisi and the UAE’s crown prince and de facto leader, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.¹⁶² 

Egypt under Sisi did not drift from its basic position regarding the Palestinian–Israeli conflict after it neutralized itself by signing the Camp David Accords on September 17, 1978, and subsequent normalization of relations with Tel Aviv. The regional balance of power had undergone a drastic shift after these accords, and since then, Egypt had become more of a neutral player regarding this conflict despite the fact that it retained its rhetoric of supporting the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people. However, in practice, this rhetoric rarely changed the facts on the ground as successive Israeli governments refrained from advancing toward resolving the historical conflict with the Palestinians, in refusing the establishment of an independent state, and by continuing settlement activities throughout the Palestinian territories in order to change the demographic situation on the ground. In May 2021, when war broke out between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Egypt brokered a cease-fire after 11 days of confrontation and the killing of 248 persons. Sisi pledged US$500 million for Gaza reconstruction as no less than 450 buildings had been destroyed. 

However, Egypt’s policy toward Hamas saw enormous shifts: 

Between 2014 and 2017, the Sisi regime rhetorically vilified Hamas and actively participated in the blockade of the group, but around 2017 it pivoted to a policy of cooperating with Hamas to counter the Islamic State (IS) insurgency in Sinai. Underpinning these seemingly juxtaposed policies, Egypt consistently acts as a mediator between Hamas and its foes (Israel and Fatah), a role essential for both Egypt’s relationship with the United States and its regional influence. The resulting policy decisions often appear contradictory and confusing, complexly rooted in the regime’s multifaceted objectives and the interplay between domestic and foreign policy objectives. On the domestic front, the demonization of Hamas at one time played an important role in Sisi’s repression campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood, with the Brotherhood cast as conspiring with Hamas to destroy the Egyptian state. Although this rhetoric would wane and give way to a policy of cooperation, this purported collusion provided justification for both continued repressions of the Brotherhood and the blockade of the Gaza strip, deeply intertwining anti-Hamas rhetoric with domestic Egyptian politics.¹⁶³⁺ 

Conclusion 

Compared to other Arab countries that witnessed popular upheavals such as Libya, Yemen, and Syria, it could be said that Egypt regained its stability and escaped turmoil after the 2011 revolution. However, the democratic path was aborted before it was born, and the autocratic regime was renewed with the return of the military to power under Sisi. Human rights violations were excessive and on a massive scale. Reflecting on Egypt’s Sisi regime, on May 1, 2022, the New York Times reported that 

In almost a decade as president, Mr. el-Sisi has transformed Egypt from a country that tolerated some political debate and artistic license, even under the rule of strongmen, into one where fear compels silence. Imprisoning critics big and small, criminalizing protests and muzzling the press, the government has smothered nearly all political opposition.¹⁶⁴ 

The four intrinsic and enduring qualities of Egypt, observed by ancient Greek historian and ethnographer, Herodotus, were and remain the Nile, the desert, religion, and autocracy. Herodotus had no doubt that Egyptians were “religious to excess, beyond any other nation in the world.”¹⁶⁵ The Nile itself may lack the endurance of the other three Egyptian traits if it yields to the desert in the face of the desiccating effects of climate change and Ethiopian projects to dam the upper Nile. 

Autocracy, perhaps as old as the first hydrological works to harness the seasonal floodwaters of the Nile for agriculture, is, with some justification, associated over the long haul with stability and security. Modern Egyptians continue to respond to challenges arising from the interaction of the same elements as did their forebears over five millennia. The never-ending dance and struggle between religion and autocracy is represented by Sisi’s suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood, much as in Nasser’s time. While recognizing their great value, repeated reversals serve to remind us that the ideals of democratic governance are a recent foreign import to Egypt, a delicate flower in a challenging environment. As part of its strategy for survival, the Sisi regime has attempted to enlarge the four Egyptian elements into five, with its renovation of the Suez Canal, though also representing a continuation of Egypt’s age-old autocratic reliance on state-managed hydrological works. It may also constitute a recognition that Egypt must look to sources of wider scope in order to make progress and seek to harness international trade in its quest for economic, social, and political development.