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Egypt
Quick Overview:
Egypt forms part of the North Africa region. It is situated north of Sudan lying between Libya and the Gaza Strip. It borders the Mediterranean Sea. Egypt controls the Suez Canal as well as the Sinai Peninsula. Cairo is the capital city and other important cities are Al Fayyum and Asyut. Port Said and Alexandria are important ports. Although Egypt is a democracy, government is highly centralized with the president having extensive executive powers. The next presidential election is scheduled for 2005. President Mubarak has been in power since 1981 and is widely considered to have kept the country’s internal situation quite stable. His greatest opposition comes from Islamic extremists. The government has gone to great lengths to keep groups such as these from employing terrorist tactics. Details of government offices can be found via our organisation search and of government officers via our personality search. These details are often difficult to source and maintain and we welcome feedback on changes and missing information. Egypt’s economy is healthy and it is one of the most prosperous in Africa despite having to service a foreign debt that is more than double the national budget. Pressure has been applied by the IMF and the World Bank for the country to implement reforms in order to rectify the situation. These reforms include the lifting of price controls, the reduction of subsidies as well as the relaxation of restrictions on trade and investment. The most important recent development is the privatisation plan that is currently under way. The motivation for the programme came as a result of pressure from the World Bank and the IMF. The government has since committed itself to the implementation of further economic reforms. These reforms have resulted in a more liberalised economy as well as good economic practices. Work permits will be granted to foreigners by the Ministry of Labour on a case-by-case basis. It takes about three months to process an application. The government has strict regulations about the employment and remuneration of Egyptian residents by foreign companies.
Geography:
Ismail's son Tewfiq Pasha reformed the Egyptian economy and relinquished financial control to the British who began to run the government of the country. Egyptian nationalists, horrified at Tewfiq's submission to the British, forced him to appoint their leader Ahmed Orabi as Minister of War, but the European reaction was swift and violent. Alexandria was shelled and Ismailiyya occupied. Orabi's army was defeated at Tel El Kabir and the British reinstalled Tewfiq as a puppet. Orabi was driven into exile and Mustafa Kamil became the leader of the nationalist movement. British influence over Egypt continued to increase. The country became an economic colony, totally dependent upon the import of British manufactured goods and the export of its raw cotton. The outbreak of the World War I brought Egypt formally into the British Empire as a Protectorate when the Ottoman Sultan declared his support for the Germans against the allies. During the war Fouad, the sixth son of Khedive Ismail, had become Khedive of Egypt but his authority was to be constantly challenged by Egyptian nationalists who fed on the popular resentment of foreign domination. Sa'ad Zaghloul was the leader of the nationalist movement during and after the first war and in 1918 he formally presented the British High Commissioner with a demand for complete autonomy which was rejected out of hand. Zaghloul's eventual arrest and deportation to Malta resulted in widespread anti-British riots, forcing the British to back down. In 1922 the British ended the protectorate and recognized Egypt's independence, while maintaining control over the essential government institutions and the Suez Canal. Fouad was proclaimed King of Egypt in March of the same year. The years that followed were characterized by a triangular power struggle between the British, the King and the nationalist Wafd party which had the support of the population. Farouk, the son of King Fouad, ascended the Egyptian throne in 1935. In the beginning, the reign of King Farouk was greeted with enthusiasm by both the Wafd party and by the rapidly growing Muslim Brotherhood. Farouk was, amazingly, the first Egyptian ruler of the descendants of Mohammed Ali Pasha to speak fluent Arabic. Turkish had been the court language of all his predecessors. Moreover, Farouk seemed to have nationalist sympathies. The young ruler was, unfortunately, too weak to defy the British. Within a year he had signed the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty which gave British forces the right to remain in the Suez Canal Zone while ostensibly ending the British occupation of Egypt. With the outbreak of World War II, the Wafd Party threw its support behind the allies on the understanding that Egypt would gain full independence once the war was over. But hatred towards the British rule was so intense by this time that clandestine support for the Germans existed in nationalist factions like the Muslim Brotherhood. Gamal Abd-Al Nasser was a charismatic and brilliant political leader who achieved unprecedented popularity both in Egypt and throughout the Arab world. He was admired for his rousing support of Arab Nationalism; his domestic social programmes (which, for the first time in Egypt's history, sought to better the lot of the peasant majority); his dramatic nationalization of the Suez Canal; and also because of Egypt's heroic stand against the British invasion. However Nasser's vehement opposition to Israel and his outspoken criticism of the West lost him US and European support for the building of the Aswan High Dam, forcing the Egyptian president to turn to the Soviets for aid. The need for capital to build the High Dam is cited as one of the reasons for nationalizing the Suez Canal. Whatever Nasser's initial intentions, the Suez Crisis propelled him to the forefront of the Arab Nationalist movement. Pan Arab unity became the overriding theme of the Arab world from the late 1950s up to 1967 and Nasser became its chief advocate and spokesman. The most dramatic display of Pan-Arabism took place in 1958 when Egypt united with Syria to form a single country, the United Arab Republic. But Nasser, for all his oratory, was essentially an Egyptian nationalist. The practical interests of the two countries never meshed and the union came to nothing. But Nasser's revolutionary pan-Arabism was not all talk. Egypt entered the Yemeni civil war against the monarchy on the side of leftist guerrillas, further alienating the west and Saudi Arabia. At the same time he strengthened Egypt's ties to the Soviet Union, relying on the communist bloc for technical and military assistance to build an army to fight the US-supported Israeli army. Nasser also supported the formation of the Palestine Liberation Organization, further alienating him from the West. Nasser's relations with the West were complex. He knew that he could never develop Egypt without large infusions of foreign aid and he knew that the West was the most reliable source of this aid. Yet he came to discover that the more anti-Western his stance appeared to be, the more foreign aid he was offered by western countries to buy his moderation. When at one point in his regime he became more conciliatory to the west, his foreign aid dropped dramatically. As a founding-leader of the Non-aligned movement Nasser could have it both ways. Along with India's Nehru and Indonesia's Sukarno, Gamal Abd-Al Nasser became a major international power-broker in the politics of the developing world. Nasser's pan-Arab politics of the period tend to overshadow the achievements of his regime. Land reform was put into effect, breaking up the large feudal estates into smaller parcels of land and redistributing land to the fellaheen who for millennia had been an underclass of serfs. When the Aswan High Dam was completed, arable land in the Nile Valley increased by 15%. Nasser also built the country's industrial base, powered by electricity generated from the High Dam. Prior to the revolution, Egypt had been an elitist society with few, if any, state-sponsored benefits to the large majority of the population. The new government established extensive free educational programmes for both boys and girls and developed the country's medical infrastructure. The country had to pay a heavy price for much of this development. Political repression and censorship increased. The educated classes and political elite who could have contributed to the building of the country were disenfranchised and persecuted. They were replaced by an under-educated socialist bureaucracy which provided Nasser with his power base, but which was grossly incompetent, setting the lowest possible standards for the administration of a great country. Economic stagnation and industrial and agricultural inefficiency subverted real development. Rhetoric had replaced reality. The Six-Day War of June 1967 marked the end of Nasser's Pan-Arab dream. The Arab world's ignominious defeat by Israel ended in the Israeli occupation of Syria's Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in Palestine and, most painfully for Egypt, the Sinai. However, the greatest symbolic humiliation for the Arabs was the fall of Jerusalem. The bombastic rhetoric of Arab leaders now seemed like so much hot air. Hatred of Israel and its chief supporter, the United States, reached a pinnacle. The defeat of the Egyptian army and the loss of Sinai would have destroyed the political career of an Arab leader of lesser stature and indeed, Abd-Al Nasser offered to resign as president. Such was his extraordinary popularity that the Egyptian people staged massive spontaneous demonstrations in support of the president and he remained in power. His death in 1970 of a heart attack sent shock waves throughout the Arab world. In a stunning display of emotion, millions of Egyptians followed his funeral procession through the streets of Cairo. Anwar Sadat had been one of the original "Free Officers Group" and served as Nasser's vice-president and chosen successor, but he had never been taken seriously until he assumed control of the government. Sadat began to systematically reverse the failed socialist policies of his predecessor, ultimately expelling the Soviets and reforming the economy. But it was Sadat's surprise attack against Israeli forces in the Sinai on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on October 6, 1973 which gave Sadat the credibility which earned the respect of his countrymen. The "October War" shattered the image of Israeli invincibility which had persisted since the Six-Day War and gave the Arab world a tremendous psychological boost. Although the war turned against the Arabs and ended in a stalemate, Sadat emerged as a hero. Sadat then set about liberalizing the Egyptian system. Political prisoners were granted amnesty, censorship of the press was lifted and political parties were allowed. Sadat also made a show of reversing the harsh secularism which was beginning to alienate the still traditionally religious middle classes by strongly identifying himself as a devout Muslim. At the same time, he instituted the Infitah, or "Open Door" policy, encouraging foreign investment and the development of the private sector. Gulf Arab investments began to flow into the country and international investment and foreign aid increased. Still, the spectre of another debilitating war with Israel loomed. After years of socialist privation and militarism the Egyptian people had had enough. Although there were still echoes of pan-Arabism, the booming oil-producing Gulf economies had undergone a shift in attitude. At the same time, Egypt was facing pressure from the International Monetary Fund to remove the food subsidies, which were sapping the country's financial reserves. Sadat knew that this would undermine his political power so, instead of graduating the removal of subsidies, he did it in a single day at the beginning of 1977, causing prices to double suddenly and igniting what have been called the food riots. It was a brilliant ploy that caused the IMF to back down and reschedule Egypt's loans and the US to increase its foreign aid to the country. Food subsidies were immediately reinstated. Sadat made his most dramatic and controversial political move later the same year. On November 19, 1977 Sadat suddenly traveled to Jerusalem with overtures of peace to Israel. On a global level the move was brilliant, catapulting Sadat to the front ranks of international diplomacy. He became the darling of the west and gave the Arab world a new image of moderation. On a domestic and regional level, Sadat's peace initiative was to outrage the Arab world and alienate the president from many of his people. Never as charismatic as his predecessor, Sadat was perceived as a traitor, toadying to western interests. Egypt was the first Arab state to recognize Israel's right to exist and the subsequent Camp David agreements, which won Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin the Nobel Peace Prize, further isolated Egypt from the rest of the Arab world. The Arab League relocated from Cairo to Tunis and many Arab countries severed diplomatic and trade relations. Sadat's cultivation of the West, which was initially greeted with enthusiasm by most Egyptians, began to backfire after the peace initiative. Economic liberalization, which brought wealth to the upper and middle classes, brought inflation to the country and increased the poverty of the lower classes. Sadat's support for Islam also began to backfire as groups like the Muslim Brotherhood gained wider support and became more vocal in their criticism of government economic policies and the Camp David agreements which were portrayed as a sell out to the Zionists. Militant fundamentalist groups throughout the Arab world and in Egypt began to call for Sadat's overthrow or assassination. After relaxing government repression Sadat resorted to wide-scale arrests and the western media who had coddled him since Camp David, suddenly turned on the president. In October 1981 Sadat was assassinated at a military parade. He had become so isolated from his people by this time that his death and funeral elicited little reaction from a people that had poured into the streets in grief when his predecessor Naser had died. Vice-President Hosni Mubarak became President on October 14 following the assassination of late Anwar As-Sadat in October 1981.There were some improvements in Egyptian foreign affairs during 1984; Egyptian diplomacy managed to overcome the antagonistic reactions to the Camp David agreements. Their new position on the Palestinian question was based on the argument that "any fair settlement of the Middle East question had to take into full account the rights of the Palestinian people" assuring that "Arab solidarity was the only way to recover the usurped rights". From early 1985 the economic situation became more difficult as revenues from oil, emigrants’ repatriated pay, canal fees and tourism, considerably declined. Islamic Fundamentalism was very powerful in opposition and became increasingly so as the Government’s popularity plummeted. Between 1980 and 1986 there was a significant increase in the role of foreign capital in the Egyptian national economy and US aid continued to be a very important source of income. The Government received almost $3 billion per year, $1.3 billion of which was spent on defence. The Egyptian foreign debt increased from $2.4 billion in 1970 to $35 billion in 1986. Representing contact between the Arab countries and the United States, Mubarak proposed, in the UN General Assembly in September 1989, arranging an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, with no prior conditions. In October of the same year, relations with Libya were renewed. The Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait in August 1990; Egypt was among the first Arab countries to condemn the action and sent troops to the Gulf immediately. The US announced the cancellation of the Egyptian military debt (approximately $7 billion) upon launching the land offensive to liberate Kuwait in January 1991. The foreign debt reached a record $40 billion in 1990. Per capita income averaged some $600 per year, with over a third of the population living below the poverty line. In May 1991, the IMF approved a stand-by loan of $372 million to Egypt, conditional on an economic "structural adjustment plan". Cairo committed itself to privatizing State-run companies, to eliminating controls on production and investment and to reducing the current fiscal deficit from 21 per cent to 6.5 per cent of the GNP. In order to achieve these goals the government decided to cut back subsidies on food and other staples and to reduce the program of aid for the needy. On May 15 1991, foreign minister and deputy minister Esmat Abdel Majeed was named the new secretary- general of the Arab League. The appointment of Abdul Majeed, who is now replaced by the former Prime Minster Amru Musa, signified Egypt’s recovery of its leadership role within the Arab world. The escalation of violence from Islamic fundamentalist groups led the Government to enact an anti-terrorist law and extend the state of emergency, which had been in effect for the past ten years, for another three years. According to official statistics, this violence resulted in 175 deaths between February 1992 and August 1993. In May 1994, the President formed a committee to organize political talks between the Government and opposition with the exclusion of communists, the Muslim Brotherhood and groups representing the Coptic minority. Internationally, Egypt recovered its main role in the Middle East peace talks and in the sphere of political exchanges between Arab countries. A meeting was held in Alexandria in December 1994 involving leaders from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria. In February 1995, a summit joining leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Israel and Palestine was held in Cairo. In 1995, Mubarak was unable to find a solution to the confrontation with Islamic fundamentalists. In January, the Egyptian minister of interior, Hasan Al-Alfi attended a meeting of Arab countries’ interior ministers in an attempt to coordinate the fight against violence of the Islamic fundamentalist movements. In November 1995, the ruling National Democratic Party won the parliamentary elections with the participation of all the parties acknowledged by the Government. Elections, held amid a violent atmosphere, granted 416 of the 444 seats at stake to the ruling party, which provoked several accusations of fraud. In January 1996, Mubarak appointed Kamal al-Ganzouri as Prime Minister, replacing Atif Sidqi. Attacks by armed Islamic groups continued throughout 1996 and 1997, along with government repression of all such groups, including those opposed to the use of violence, like the Muslim Brotherhood.
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