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Egypt Local Government
Local government traditionally enjoyed limited power in Egypt's
highly centralized state. Under the central government were twentysix governorates (sing., muhafazah; pl., muhafazat).
These were subdivided into districts (sing., markaz; pl.,
marakaz) and villages (sing., qaryah; pl.,
qura) or towns
(see
fig. 1). At each level, there was a
governing structure that combined representative councils and
government-appointed executive organs headed by governors, district
officers, and mayors, respectively. Governors were appointed by the
president, and they, in turn, appointed subordinate executive
officers. The coercive backbone of the state apparatus ran downward
from the Ministry of Interior through the governors' executive
organs to the district police station and the village headman
(sing., umdah; pl., umadah).
Before the revolution, state penetration of the rural areas was
limited by the power of local notables, but under Nasser, land
reform reduced their socioeconomic dominance, and the incorporation
of peasants into cooperatives transferred mass dependence from
landlords to government. The extension of officials into the
countryside permitted the regime to bring development and services
to the village. The local branches of the ruling party, the Arab
Socialist Union (ASU), fostered a certain peasant political
activism and coopted the local notables--in particular the village
headmen--and checked their independence from the regime.
State penetration did not retreat under Sadat and Mubarak. The
earlier effort to mobilize peasants and deliver services
disappeared as the local party and cooperative withered, but
administrative controls over the peasants remained intact. The
local power of the old families and the headmen revived but more at
the expense of peasants than of the state. The district police
station balanced the notables, and the system of local government
(the mayor and council) integrated them into the regime.
Sadat took several measures to decentralize power to the
provinces and towns. Governors acquired more authority under Law
Number 43 of 1979, which reduced the administrative and budgetary
controls of the central government over the provinces. The elected
councils acquired, at least formally, the right to approve or
disapprove the local budget. In an effort to reduce local demands
on the central treasury, local government was given wider powers to
raise local taxes. But local representative councils became
vehicles of pressure for government spending, and the soaring
deficits of local government bodies had to be covered by the
central government. Local government was encouraged to enter into
joint ventures with private investors, and these ventures
stimulated an alliance between government officials and the local
rich that paralleled the infitah alliance at the national
level. Under Mubarak decentralization and local autonomy became
more of a reality, and local policies often reflected special local
conditions. Thus, officials in Upper Egypt often bowed to the
powerful Islamic movement there, while those in the port cities
struck alliances with importers.
Data as of December 1990
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