Obituary: (1947 - 2011): Politician by intuition By Gamal Essam El-Din When it was announced on Sunday 20 November that veteran politician had died of a heart attack at the age of 64 before being admitted to hospital, a sense of shock reigned in Egypt. El-Sadat, chairman of the Egypt National Party was one of the most outspoken critics of the ousted Mubarak regime and the former ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). He was a nephew of the late president Anwar El-Sadat and one of the most controversial political figures that Egypt has seen in recent years. In the years leading up to Mubarak's downfall in the 25 January Revolution earlier this year, El-Sadat frequently launched scathing attacks against NDP officials, accusing them of corruption and describing them "as a gathering of opportunists who have corrupted Egypt's political life for more than 30 years." El-Sadat also launched fierce attacks against Mubarak's son Gamal and against his right-hand man Ahmed Ezz, a business tycoon appointed NDP secretary for organisational affairs in early 2006. In October 2006, El-Sadat accused Mubarak and other military figures of having done nothing to prevent the assassination of his uncle, the late president Anwar El-Sadat, on 6 October 1981. The republican guard and special security forces had done nothing to prevent El-Sadat's shooting by Islamist radicals, El-Sadat said, going so far as to suggest that there had been a conspiracy led by Mubarak and former minister of defence field marshal Abdel-Halim Abu Ghazala to kill El-Sadat and seize power. The accusations led to 's being indicted for trial before a military tribunal. He was stripped of his parliamentary immunity, tried before a military court, and sent to prison for one year from October 2006 to October 2007. Nevertheless, El-Sadat was selected by former NDP stalwarts to be chairman of the party after Mubarak was ousted from power in February. El-Sadat said on 12 April, after he was selected as the new NDP chairman, that his first task would be to rid the NDP of corruption. "This party was founded by my uncle," El-Sadat said at the time, "but it has been corrupted by Mubarak. My job is to bring it back to life without the corruption that has infested it." Four days later, the NDP was dissolved by order of the Supreme Administrative Court. In response, El-Sadat said that, "it is not a big worry that the NDP has been disbanded. I am ready to create another NDP in a few hours." This proved to be true when the country's Political Parties Committee licensed the Misr Al-Qawmi (National Egypt Party), a NDP off-shoot set up by El-Sadat on 17 August. The party includes a large number of former NDP MPs, especially from the Nile Delta governorates, and it aims to field a large number of candidates in the upcoming parliamentary elections. 's grudge against Mubarak goes back to 1982, just one year after Anwar El-Sadat was assassinated in a military parade and Mubarak became president. In the same year, El-Sadat's father Esmat was arrested on charges of profiteering from family ties with the late president. "Our money was sequestrated, and we were jailed for eight months and 13 days, during which time the press followed the orders of the authorities and drummed it into people's heads that we were thieves," El-Sadat told a television programme later, adding that "the effects of such slander were dire, and our family is still suffering from them." "The accusations levelled against my father Esmat were all fabricated to cover up El-Sadat's assassination," El-Sadat said. "My father was not only El-Sadat's brother, but he was also his close friend, and he had plenty of access to inside information." His father had been devastated by the death of his brother, El-Sadat said, and he wanted justice from Mubarak. long held Mubarak responsible for his uncle's death, as well as for his father's eventual blindness and early death. However, he also deplored Mubarak's being put on trial after being ousted from power earlier this year, arguing that this was needlessly humiliating. "This is humiliating for Egypt rather than for Mubarak," El-Sadat said, adding that "it would be better to pardon Mubarak and allow him to enjoy the end of his life rather than humiliate him or send him to prison." "Please remember that Mubarak was a military man who participated in Egypt's wars and played a leading role in the victory of 1973 against Israel," he said. However, El-Sadat refused to countenance any pardon for Mubarak's two sons Gamal and Alaa. "The fact is that it was Mubarak's two sons, especially Gamal, and his wife Suzanne who corrupted him and pushed him into adopting the father-son succession scenario that caused his eventual downfall," he said. 's direct involvement in politics goes back at least to 1983, when he tried to set up a committee to commemorate the life of former president Anwar El-Sadat. This was dissolved by the government in 1996, he claimed, following the death of his father Esmat. "We were not allowed to commemorate his death or even to put up his pictures in public." Later attempts to set up a political party or NGO in the name of El-Sadat were also rejected by the authorities. As a result, El-Sadat joined the Liberal (Ahrar) Party in 1996, heading the public relations committee there until being promoted to deputy president. After the death of the Ahrar Party chairman Mustafa Kamel Mourad, El-Sadat was nominated for the position, and in 2002 the party's general conference elected him chairman of the party. In 2003, El-Sadat stood for election to parliament in the by- election for the Tala constituency in the Nile Delta governorate of Menoufiya, the birthplace of president El-Sadat and a former NDP stronghold. In the 2005 parliamentary elections, , along with his brother Mohamed Anwar, the latter named after the late president, won the two seats of the Tala constituency as independents, beating the NDP candidates. The result shocked NDP officials. According to El-Sadat, "the results were a revolution against the NDP," adding that since late president El-Sadat was elected MP for Tala in 1963, it had been a source of pride to him to restore the seat to the El-Sadat family. During their membership of the 2005-2010 People's Assembly, Talaat and his brother Anwar launched campaigns against NDP veterans, accusing them of corruption and of profiteering from their positions. Anwar El-Sadat was forced to resign from parliament in 2007 after he accused Gamal Mubarak of awarding his friends contracts to monopolise shipping in ports such as Ain Al-Sokhna. was accused of defaming the image of the army and imprisoned in a military prison for one year in October 2006. During his lifetime, often described himself as a "politician by intuition", as well as a lawyer and former political prisoner. His record of political clashes was not confined to attacking Mubarak's family and NDP officials, since he also attacked his own relative Gamal El-Sadat, son of the late president, accusing him of forging relationships with Mubarak's sons in order to secure business contracts. While working as a lawyer, El-Sadat irritated former minister of the interior Habib El-Adli by successfully defending a man charged with murdering 10 people in southern Egypt in 2005. He also clashed with journalist Mustafa Bakri, accusing him of achieving his wealth as a result of his connections with the NDP's old guard, especially former NDP secretary-general Safwat El-Sherif. was known for his political theatricality. He once tried to hit NDP business tycoon Ahmed Ezz with his shoe in parliament and posed with two lions for a campaign picture. Many political commentators described him as a populist character who did a lot to generate controversy but who also achieved wide popularity. After setting up the Egypt National Party earlier this year, El-Sadat went on to launch a campaign against the 6 April Movement, a revolutionary group which played a major role in the 25 January Revolution. He accused the movement's leaders of obtaining money from the US in order to spread chaos in Egypt and made use of Al-Faraeen satellite television channel, owned by party member Tawfik Okasha, to spearhead a campaign against the movement.
