Born in 1918, Anwar Sadat went to a Royal Military Academy to become a Free Officer. During his early stages of his life, Anwar Sadat served the military in various capacities.
While working as a lieutenant in the military, Anwar Sadat met Gamal Abdel Nasser and thereafter formed a Free Officers Movement with an aim of snatching out Egypt from the British hegemony. Soon, the movement plotted a coup that led to the Egyptian revolution of 1952, which overthrew King Farouk I, a state of affair that Anwar Sadat announced over radio networks on 23 July 1952.
Later on, Gamal Abdel Nasser became the president and appointed Anwar Sadat as the minister of state in 1954. Five year later, Anwar Sadat assumed the position of the secretary to the National Union and eventually the speaker of the legislative assembly from 1960 to 1968. The following year, 1969, Gamal Abdel Nasser appointed Anwar Sadat as his vice president, a position he held until the assassination of Abdel Nasser.
Anwar Sadat succeeded Nasser as president on acting capacity while awaiting elections. Interestingly, Anwar Sadat did not follow the footsteps of Nasser, instead; he established his own regime based on economic issues affecting Egyptians. By doing this, Anwar realized that he needed support from the West.
Nevertheless, in order to qualify for Western investment, Anwar had to comply with certain issues. For instance, peaceful coexistence between Egypt and Israel was one of the prerequisites. Additionally, the Egyptian authority had to get rid of the Soviet influence to pave way for Western capitalism.
In 1970, Anwar Sadat won the presidential elections by more than 90 percent to become the third president of Egypt. Nonetheless, many people did not expect Sadat to rule for long time due to his scrawny and colorless figure. Surprisingly, Anwar Sadat invented a myriad of incisive political moves, which enabled him to retain the presidency and donned him the regalia of a leader.
It was apparent that Anwar Sadat’s leadership was a leaf from the West. It is important to note that Nasser’s regime advocated Pan-Arabism. However, Anwar chose the exact opposite. Anybody who dared to oppose his regime risked a jail sentence.
Nevertheless, as it came out, the arrested were pro-Soviet and left-leaning elites who teamed to oppose Anwar’s Western meritocracies. Later on, Anwar appointed a crown of leaders outside the Free Officer Movement to serve as government officers, as most Free Officers were pro-Soviet and subscribers of Arabism.
To make matters worse, in 1978, Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David Treaty and one year later, he signed the Egypt-Israeli peace treaty thus, fulfilling the demands of the West. Undoubtedly, Egypt had isolated itself from the Arab world. It no longer got financial assistance from oil rich Arab countries it used to enjoy.
On realizing this, Sadat approached western countries, predominantly United States and made it Egypt’s economic client. Consequently, USA awarded Egypt with US$1.3 billion, money meant mostly for the decentralization of the Egyptian military. USA also gave aid to Egypt in support of its foreign policy. With time, Egypt denounced its military technology ties with Russia and replaced it with that of the West.
Although Sadat never deprecated Nasser’s socialism, he ingeniously disfigured the public segment, which allowed thrive of capitalism. Under Nasser’s socialism, the greatest beneficiaries were people classified as middle and lower income earners. On the contrary, Sadat brought a policy that favored upper and middle class income earners.
Economic liberalization became a talk of the day characterized by wobbly state controls and an enhanced private sector. Just like in economics, the abating of the public sector disadvantages the lower class. It is also imperative to note that policy devolution not only enriches few individuals, but also encourages corruption, bureaucratic lassitude, incompetence and lackadaisical attitude in principal duties.
Both Sadat and his lieutenants became perpetual critics of Nasserism and in its place, Sadat proposed Islamic fundamentalism. Nevertheless, on realizing his mission was bound to fail, he overturned himself by endorsing secularism. The man who had advocated for the development of democratic norms was slowly turning into a dictator through his inflexible control mechanisms. Consequently, his ideological synthesis of developing societal solidity and authority failed significantly.
The ideological vacuity grew to be an untamed monster giving birth to two factions, the ‘left’ and ‘right’. Between these two factions rose the brawniest ideological surrogate, Islamic fundamentalism, which will later oppose the ruling elite. Additionally, 1976, Sadat introduced multi-party system that ended the one-party rule of Arab Socialist Organization (ASO). Several parties arose, each with its own ideologies and principles.
For example, the Leftist Group supporting Marxist and progressive doctrines, Soviet ties growth of the public sector; the Centre-Arab Socialist Group that subscribed to the tenets of limited democratization, capitalism and attachment to the West; and the Rightist Group that supported completely free-enterprise and clandestine venture system.
Soon, Egypt went into election in 1976 where the centrist group won the outright majority in parliament. A year later, violent food uprisings broke out that threatened Sadat’s regime. Nevertheless, the army overwhelmed the rioters and calmness returned. Opposition attacks continued to increase though.
Sadat could not wipe out Muslim Brotherhood opposition as he relied on the Islamic fundamentalists. All the same, he plotted a move contain the growing opposition by creating a new political party, National Democratic Party (NDP), to replace ASO. In 1979, the party won 320 seats thus, strengthening Sadat’s regime. Unfortunately, on 6 October 1981, an assassin killed Sadat and Hosni Mubarak became the president.
It is imperative to note that the Camp David Accords were instruments of peace and prosperity. Perhaps this is the reason why Egypt never engaged in war with other countries. In fact, President Hosni Mubarak used the Camp David Accords to wallop a peace accord with Israel. Hosni Mubarak was the vice president of Sadat. After taking over, he merged Sadat’s political ideologies with new policies to run his regime. Like Sadat, Mubarak continued to rely on the West and he never opposed the US foreign policy.
The war in Lebanon brought a sigh of relief to Egypt and many Arab countries approached Egypt to buy weapons. Nevertheless, Egypt never participated in such wars, a move that prompted US to waive its debts, which Egypt owed. Back in Egypt, Hosni continued to oppose religious extremism and terrorism and at times, he ordered a crackdown of these groups. According to many observers, Hosni manipulated election results in his favor to enable him cling to power.
In 1986, majority of the unemployed citizens took to the streets calling for the resignation of Hosni Mubarak as president in what they termed unconcealed laissez-faire and neglect of the poor.
Nevertheless, the army managed to quell the insurgence at least for the time being. Hosni Mubarak’s regime engaged in mass violation of human rights, for instance, a decree to shoot and kill religious extremists. The state evolved into a one-man state of police brutality and army authoritarianism. On the contrary, Egypt under Hosni Mubarak saw an increase in foreign investment and a sustained economic growth of 6-7 percent.
Although this was good news to many Egyptians, many of then still lived in poverty, as the super-rich Egyptians took control of all major economic programs. The rich grew richer, even as the poor grew poorer under Hosni’s Regime. He made no effort to create a policy that will enable the poor benefit from the growing economy. With time, unemployment rates rose to an unprecedented scale. High inflation rates caused the rise in the price of basic commodities such as food and clothing.
Furthermore, corruption in government departments skyrocketed denying the common people good services. The insensitivity of the ruling class continued to rise each day. Luckily, in Tunisia, the citizens had gone to the streets to protest poor services from their government. Egypt followed suit and on 11 February 2011, Hosni Mubarak resigned leaving power to his deputy who then sanctioned the Armed Council Forces Council to synchronize state affairs until the next elections listed in six months time.