Egypt

Vice President Hosni Mubarak succeeded Sadat as president. Mubarak promised to stress continuity in foreign policy and betterment of economic conditions in Egypt. One of his first acts was to release the politicians whom Sadat had jailed. While maintaining Egypt’s close ties with the United States, Mubarak also pursued closer ties with other Arab countries and kept his distance from Israel. By 1987 most Arab states had restored their diplomatic ties with Egypt. Egypt was readmitted to the Arab League in 1989 and the league's headquarters was moved back to Cairo.

Within Egypt, the government continued to move away from state-controlled enterprises but also curbed some of the excesses of businessmen and speculators who had taken advantage of Sadat’s infitah policy. Corruption, even among members of Sadat’s family, was exposed and halted. Mubarak allowed new political parties to form and eased some curbs on press freedom, but he maintained the state of emergency that Sadat had imposed in 1981 to prevent the Islamist groups from gaining power. Yet the government seemed less able than the Islamists, who maintained a traditional Islamic social services network, to deliver medical, educational, and social benefits to poor people. Continued inequities between a rich and powerful minority and the impoverished masses appalled most Egyptians.

In 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait, and Mubarak supported the U.S.-led allied coalition that was formed to reverse the occupation (see Persian Gulf War). Egypt’s intellectuals widely criticized his support of the coalition, and many Egyptians sympathized with the Iraqis. Between 1990 and 1997, radical Islamist groups engaged in violent action to overthrow the government. Members of these groups murdered secular-minded politicians, a leading secularist writer, Copts, and foreign tourists. Mubarak himself barely escaped an assassination attempt in 1995. The government responded by imprisoning or executing numerous radicals. Economic reforms in the 1990s promoted economic development and raised Egypt’s per capita income, but the economy stagnated from 2000 to 2002. Afterward the economy picked up somewhat due in part to a devaluation of the currency in 2003. The peace policy with Israel and Egypt’s close ties to the United States remained widely unpopular. Nevertheless, the Egyptian government formally upheld the peace treaty with Israel and on occasion sponsored meetings aimed at promoting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

During the early 2000s Mubarak continued his policies of suppressing radical Islamists and permitting only weak opposition from other political parties. He was quick to condemn the September 11 attacks on the United States, and in the wake of those attacks reaffirmed the importance of his crackdown on Islamic fundamentalists. In the meantime more moderate Islamic groups were demanding a more overtly Islamist state based upon Sharia (Islamic law). Although Egyptian legislation is nominally based upon Sharia, some would like to see Sharia more rigorously enforced in practice. Such a policy was opposed by religious minorities, chiefly Coptic Christians (see Coptic Church); some secular liberals; and also by the United States. The holding of relatively free elections by Palestinians and in Iraq in early 2005 led to some publicly expressed Egyptian sentiment in favor of more democracy at home. As Mubarak’s fourth six-year term drew to a close in 2005, some groups called for changes in the constitution, including a two-term limit on the presidency. In May 2005 voters approved a constitutional amendment that allowed for multiparty candidates and direct election of the president by secret ballot.

As presidential elections approached, Egypt became the scene of several terrorist bombings. In October 2004 suicide bombers at two resort towns in the Sinai Peninsula killed 34 people, many of them Israeli tourists. Then in July 2005 three explosive-filled trucks driven by suicide bombers detonated in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm al-Sheikh at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula. The reported death toll in those three explosions ranged from 64 to 88 people.

Nevertheless, Egypt’s first multiparty presidential election took place without violence in September 2005. Mubarak was easily reelected with more than 85 percent of the vote, although voter turnout was low with only about 7 million votes cast from a pool of 32 million registered voters. The turnout of about 22 percent contrasted with a turnout of more than 53 percent in the referendum on the constitutional amendment. Opposition parties charged election fraud and said Mubarak’s campaign dominated the state-owned media.

Mubarak again pushed for changes to Egypt’s constitution in 2007 when a referendum approved several amendments that increased presidential power. The changes gave the president the power to dissolve Egypt’s bicameral legislature without holding a referendum, limit the role of judges in monitoring elections, and suspend civil rights protections in cases that the president determines are associated with terrorism. The referendum also reconfirmed the existing ban on political parties based on religion. Opposition groups and human rights organizations said the outcome of the referendum was affected by widespread vote fraud. The referendum passed overwhelmingly with more than 75 percent approval and a voter turnout of about 10 million people, according to government reports.

Arthur Goldschmidt, Jr., contributed the History section of this article.