Anwar Sadat

Anwar Sadat’s role in the book is brief but institutionally significant: as president of Egypt, he founded the National Democratic Party in 1978, the party that later became closely intertwined with business under Hosni Mubarak. The account places Sadat’s party within a longer transition from a state-dominated economy toward markets whose opportunities remained concentrated among politically connected groups.

Presidency and Party

After the military coup that removed Egypt’s monarchy in 1954, the country was governed as a quasi-socialist society in which the state played a central economic role and many sectors were dominated by state-owned enterprises. Over time, socialist rhetoric faded, markets opened, and a private sector developed. Sadat founded the National Democratic Party in 1978, giving the subsequent political order a party institution that would become closely associated with the business elite.

The Mubarak-Era Alliance

Hosni Mubarak became president in 1981 after Sadat’s assassination and ruled with the National Democratic Party until popular protests and the military forced him from power in February 2011. Under Mubarak, businesspeople became increasingly involved with the party, while the party and government became increasingly involved with them. Major business figures were appointed to government posts tied to their economic interests, and politically connected firms gained protection, contracts, and loans.

This later alliance should not be confused with a personal relationship between Sadat and the businessmen described in the account. Sadat’s stated connection is institutional: he founded the party under which the subsequent entanglement of political and commercial power took shape. The evidence does not detail his personal role in the later appointments, business dealings, or privatization decisions.

Economic Reform and Privatization

The 1990s brought reforms promoted by international financial institutions and economists, with the stated aim of freeing markets and reducing the state’s economic role. Privatization was a central measure. In Egypt, however, regime-connected businesspeople influenced how state assets were sold, allowing reform to favor established elites rather than broadly opening markets to competition.

The account’s example is the privatization of Al Ahram Beverages, the state monopoly beer maker. In 1996 the government rejected a consortium’s bid of 400 million Egyptian pounds as too low. Ahmed Zayat, who lacked the funds to buy the company outright, acquired a controlling stake through the Luxor Group after the shares were floated on the London Stock Exchange. After a sequence of share transactions, he purchased the company for 231 million pounds. In 1999, the privatized firm expanded from beer into wine by acquiring Gianaclis, the privatized national wine monopoly, whose position was protected by a 3,000 percent tariff on imported wine. Zayat sold Al Ahram Beverages to Heineken in 2002 for 1.3 billion Egyptian pounds.

Significance and Limits of the Evidence

Sadat’s significance here lies in the founding of a party that later formed part of Egypt’s political framework, not in a developed personal narrative. The account uses the party’s evolution to show how opening markets and selling state assets did not necessarily create inclusive competition: political connections could preserve barriers to entry and concentrate economic gains. It does not establish that Sadat designed or directed the specific practices of the Mubarak era; rather, it identifies him as the founder of the party through which that later political-business relationship operated.