1928 -
Egyptian officer and politician; president of Egypt since 1981.
Born in Minufiyya province to a middle-class family, Muhammad Husni Mubarak graduated from the Military Academy in 1949 and from the Air Force Academy the next year. After a brief stint as a fighter pilot, he served as an instructor at the Air Force Academy from 1954 to 1961. He spent the following academic year at the Soviet General Staff Academy. He was the commandant of the Air Force Academy from 1967 to 1969, air force chief of staff from 1969 to 1971, and then commander in chief from 1971 to 1974. He took charge of Egypt's aerial preparations for the Arab - Israel War in 1973. Because of his outstanding performance in the war, he was promoted to the rank of air marshal in 1974. President Anwar al-Sadat appointed him vice president in 1975, and Mubarak served him loyally for the next six years.
After Sadat was assassinated in October 1981, Mubarak quickly assumed the presidency, was officially nominated within a week by the National Democratic Party, and was confirmed without any opposition by a nationwide referendum. Upon taking over, he promised to address Egypt's economic and social problems, tried to curb the favoritism and corruption that had marred Sadat's final days, and released many of the political and religious leaders whom Sadat had sent to prison. Many of Sadat's henchmen were quietly removed from office.
Mubarak maintained Egypt's ties with the U.S. government, on whose economic aid it had become increasingly dependent. He did not break diplomatic relations with Israel (although he did recall Egypt's ambassador from Tel Aviv during Israel's invasion of Lebanon), and he slowly restored good relations with the other Arab governments and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which had withdrawn their ambassadors from Cairo upon Sadat's signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace accord in 1979. He hosts visits from Israeli leaders, but has seldom visited Israel since he became president. His government has played a prominent role in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Although Mubarak's government encouraged Western and Arab investment in Egypt's economy, he curbed the operation of foreign multinational corporations within the country. He instituted a program of economic reform following a severe fiscal crisis in the late 1980s and also tried to form an economic union with Iraq, Yemen, and Jordan. His efforts to mediate the 1990 dispute between Iraq and Kuwait failed and instead became a precipitating factor in Saddam Hussein's decision to invade and occupy Kuwait. Although Mubarak initially hoped for an Arab solution to the problem, his government soon rallied behind Operation Desert Shield, sending 40,000 troops to join the allied coalition in Saudi Arabia. Egypt was later rewarded by the cancellation of some $14 billion worth of accumulated foreign debt. Egypt's economy made impressive gains during the 1990s. He has been elected president, without opposition, for four six-year terms, making him the longest-serving Egyptian head of state since Muhammad Ali. He has not yet designated a successor.
The Mubarak government has been challenged by Islamist political movements, which attacked prominent government officials, secularists, Copts, and foreigners between 1992 and 1997, but has curbed such violence through arrests, detention, trials, and occasional executions. Mubarak himself was nearly assassinated while attending a meeting of the Organization of African Unity in 1995, an incident that increased his popularity within Egypt. The gap between rich and poor remains wide - a potential threat to the stability and survival of his regime. More self-effacing than either Nasser or Sadat, he inspires neither strong loyalty nor aversion among most Egyptians.
Bibliography
Baker, Raymond William. Sadat and After: Struggles for Egypt'sPolitical Soul. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990.
Goldschmidt, Arthur. Biographical Dictionary of Modern Egypt. Boulder, CO: L. Rienner, 1999.
Ibrahim, Saad Eddin. Egypt, Islam, and Democracy, 2d edition. Cairo and New York: American University in Cairo Press, 2002.
Kienle, Eberhard. A Grand Delusion: Democracy and EconomicReform in Egypt. London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2001.
Oweiss, Ibrahim M., ed. The Political Economy of ContemporaryEgypt. Washington, DC: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, 1990.
Springborg, Robert. Mubarak's Egypt: Fragmentation of the Political Order. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1989.
Weaver, Many Anne. A Portrait of Egypt: A Journey through the World of Militant Islam. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1999.
— ARTHUR GOLDSCHMIDT
