Mubarak quietly charts a course of national unity
Peace and prosperity: Anwar Sadat used to argue that if he could only achieve the first, the second would follow. But when the Egyptian President was slain last October, the peace he had achieved and enshrined in a treaty with Israel was all but overshadowed at home by a bitter polarization between self-interested rich and resentful poor.
Since taking office after the assassination, Sadat's successor, President Hosni Mubarak, has acted with quiet determination to keep both parts of that pledge and lead his country on a course of national unity. He has repeatedly stated that Egypt remains committed to the terms of the Camp David peace treaty, both before and after Israel's return of the last part of the Sinai peninsula on April 25. Says an Egyptian editor: "Mubarak has made peace the policy of Egypt, not just the policy of Sadat." At the same time, the President has promised to chart a new economic future for the country, with his own government acting as an example of austerity. Officials last week announced that there will be no more expensive military parades like the one at which Sadat was killed. The lavish celebrations Sadat had planned to commemorate the return of the Sinai are also being scaled down. As Mubarak prepared for his first visit as President to the U.S. this week, he left behind a nation unmistakably on the mend from the trauma of Sadat's assassination.
Mubarak's moves indicate he has taken a sensitive reading of the public mind. For all his popularity in the West, Sadat did not enjoy great love and esteem at home. Many Egyptians felt that his regime was not only repressive but insensitive to their needs. Sadat's imperial lifestyle fueled intense resentment among a populace with a per capita income averaging only $469 a year. And his "open door" economic policy, intended to attract Western capital, served mainly to flood the country with luxury consumer goods and create a new class of millionaire middlemen and hustlers.
Mubarak's personal style could hardly be more in contrast with his predecessor's. A career air force officer from Sadat's home province who was Air Force Commander at the time of the 1973 October War, Mubarak had never spent a day in politics when Sadat picked him to be his Vice President in 1975. He proved to be the perfect foil for the dynamic, charismatic Sadat: efficient, disciplined, self-effacing. He has not changed. Since taking office, Mubarak, 53, has made only four public appearances. His speeches are short and to the point, and he has no interest in ceremony. As he complains to aides: "When every chicken lays an egg, must I be present for the photographer?"