Egypt The President and the Power Elite
President Husni Mubarak
Courtesy Embassy of Egypt, Washington
President Mubarak opening the People's Assembly in the early
1980s
Courtesy Embassy of Egypt, Washington
The actual use of presidential power has evolved through the
changing relationship between the chief executive and the rest of
the power elite. The style of presidential leadership determined
how the president controlled the elite. Nasser headed and ruled
through a tightly knit team of officer-revolutionaries with a
certain shared vision. Moreover, as a charismatic leader with wide
popular support, he stood above and balanced off the elites and
frequently used his popular support to curb them. Thus, he was able
to make the presidency a highly activist, interventionist office in
the service of a revolution from above that ran roughshod over the
interests of the dominant classes. He did have to contend with a
certain intraelite rivalry. The other senior Free Officers who had
helped him make the revolution were entitled to be consulted in
decision making; many of them served as powerful vice presidents,
overseeing ministers in various sectors of government activity.
Field Marshal Abdul Hakim Amir, Nasser's close colleague and the
number-two man in the regime, came close to making the army his
personal "fiefdom." But in the end, those who challenged Nasser
were purged, and generally he enjoyed nearly unquestioned
presidential authority.
Sadat transformed the charismatic, activist presidency into a
sort of "presidential monarchy." His formation of a kind of "royal
family" of influential relatives in his entourage; the traditional
legitimacy he resurrected; the essentially conservative objectives
of his policies; and the use of clientelism and corruption,
traditional techniques of rule all amounted to a traditionalization
of authority. The main issue of intraelite politics under Sadat was
resistance inside the establishment to the president's drive to
reverse many of Nasser's policies. The popular support won in the
October 1973 War gave Sadat a free hand during the crucial period
of redirection (1974-76). He also built a strong client network of
politicians allowed to enrich themselves by often illicit
manipulations of the economic opening his policies afforded and
hence, they had a big stake in his course. His shrewd
patrimonial (see Glossary)
manipulations--the constant rotation of elites in
and out of office while playing them against each other--also
helped him dominate the elite. The authoritarian political
structure was crucial to Sadat's enterprise; the regime, lacking
traditions of mass participation, largely kept the major decisions
inside elite circles where the presidency was the dominant force.
But Sadat's support also rested on a kind of tacit "social
contract" with his elite and upper-class supporters under which he
had to curb the arbitrary power of the state and the presidency. On
one hand, Sadat retained freedom in foreign policy, where personal
impulses often seemed to override professional advice, and the
ultimate powers of the authoritarian presidency were never overtly
challenged. On the other hand, Sadat relaxed the state's control
over society and the political arena and curbed the interventionist
role the presidency had played under Nasser. Although Sadat
retained the last word, he refrained from intervening in many
domestic policy matters, allowing the bourgeoisie growing scope to
advance its interests. Thus, a hybrid of traditional and legalrational authority emerged: a presidential monarchy presiding over
a power-sharing alliance between the state and its bourgeois
constituency. Sadat's patrimonial excesses and his occasionally
arbitrary imposition of major policies retarded the consolidation
of this power-sharing experiment, but it was institutionalized
under his successor.
Under Mubarak, the authoritarian presidency remained the
centerpiece of the state, although he was a less dominant figure
than his predecessors. He did not create an elite core comparable
in power to the ones they created; he lacked the mission and
revolutionary comrades of a Nasser and the patronage network of a
Sadat. Indeed, he came to power amid at least two power centers,
the military and the "Sadatists" in the elite. Although he lessened
his dependence on them by bringing in conservative Nasserites,
backing technocratic elements in the bureaucracy, and encouraging
the political opposition, he carried out no massive purge of the
elite.
Mubarak has used his power in the least activist way of Egypt's
three presidents. In contrast to Nasser and Sadat who sought to
reshape Egypt, Mubarak sought stability and incremental change and
lacked the ideological vision and political will to tackle boldly
the country's intractable problems. Much more than his
predecessors, Mubarak governed by intraelite consensus, a cautious
balancing of contrary pressures and demands. He also delegated
considerable authority to his ministers; indeed, he sometimes
remained above the fray, refraining from personally identifying
with or, in the face of opposition, strongly backing some of his
own government's policies. In the running of government, a
pragmatic managerial style stressing legality and technocracy
replaced the patrimonialism and personalism of Sadat's rule.
Foreign policy, made in consultation with professional diplomats,
was no longer the victim of presidential impulse. In some ways,
Mubarak's caution made him a man appropriate to a time of rising
constraints on state power. Having no "mission" comparable to that
of Nasser or Sadat, Mubarak could afford to be more tolerant of
opposition, and because his legitimacy rested squarely on legality,
he had a greater interest in respecting the law. The scope of
presidential power clearly narrowed, but, being less threatening,
this power was also less challenged than under Nasser and Sadat.
Indeed, Mubarak's personal integrity and genuine commitment to
limited democratization made him the most widely acceptable leader
in a regime enjoying little popular trust.
Data as of December 1990
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