Mubarak: 22 years of internal, external challenges

Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, 75 year old, is the fourth President for Egypt since the revolution of 1952, and is also the president who stayed the longest period in office, since he assumed office 22 years ago.

Mubarak, who was born in 1928 in a village in al-Manufeyag province, had become of a bright name as a military leader in October war of 1973, when he was the commander of the Egyptian air forces which had a great role in the war.

In 1975, he was appointed by President Anwar al-Sadat as his deputy. A matter which placed him in a position to succeed al-Sadat after his assassination in October 1981.

In his first years as president, Mubarak sought to eliminate several challenges facing Egypt including the difficult economic conditions, and returning back the country to its Arab affiliation, following the Arab states's boycott of Egypt after the Camp David Treaty with Israel.

Officially, Mubarak was able to bring Egypt back to the Arab rank, and the Arab League headquarters was returned back to Cairo. He also started his presidency by continuing the march of peace with Israel, and Egypt was able to restore other parts of the Sinai in April 1982. He also continued the policy resumed by his predecessor, al-Sadat, in allying with the USA which offered Egypt an annual economic donation of 2 billion dollars.

At the economic level, Mubark implemented economic reforms policies since the mid of the 1980s in which he took into account the social dimension of these policies.

Since Mubarak's presidency, Egypt also witnessed a relative democratic margin of party pluralism and the freedom of the press not known in Egypt under his predecessor. Despite that, this margin was considered limited, and the political parties are still demanding real democracy covering the cancellation of the emergency law and the abrogation of restrictions imposed on the party and political action.

The main challenges that had faced Mubarak in his rule was the resort of the Islamic groups to armed violence in the beginning of the 1990s. A matter which was faced by the Egyptian authorities by a tough security policy that has almost eliminated the violence of these groups from which Egypt had suffered due to the decrease in tourism revenues.

The Egyptian President is married and has tow sons Alaa and Gamal who is rumored to be prepared to succeed his father. Gamal has recently emerged as a political face in the ruling national party, and is currently the chairman of the party's policy committee.

Mubarak who has not so far appointed a vice president was exposed to several assassination attempts, the most dangerous of which was upon his arrival in Addis Ababa, Ethopia, in June 1995 while attending the African summit, when gunmen blocked the road before his procession, and opened fire at his car. He was not hurt in the incident, while several of the executors of the operation were killed.

At the external level, Mubarak enjoys the picture of the wise leader and the prominent regional mediator in the Middle East peace process. Whenever it is possible, he receives meetings between the Palestinians and the Israelis in order to bridge views between them.

After Mubarak recovered from his casual health condition, talks have surfaced on the political vacuum the country suffers because there is no Vice President that can be nominated by the parliament to succeed him in case the President dies, the same as had had happened with Mubarak when al-Sadat was assassinated.