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Dr. Ahmed Nazif was the Prime Minister of Egypt from July 2004 to January 2011. An expert in the field of information technology and electrical engineering, Nazif held positions in the academic, public, and private sectors. He was a professor of computer engineering at Cairo University, rose to prominent positions through 15 years of work with the Information and Decision Support Center, and was appointed in 1999 as Egypt’s first Minister of Communication and Information Technology. The Nazif government, first appointed in 2004, implemented a rigorous liberal economic reform program to transition Egypt to a market economy and stimulate foreign direct investment. Toward this end, the government privatized a record number 17 public sector enterprises in its first year alone. Despite Nazif’s promise to alleviate unemployment caused by these sweeping reforms, his policies prompted massive labor strikes throughout the last few years.
Closely associated with Gamal Mubarak, Nazif incorporated business leaders and technocrats into his cabinet, boosting a new generation of NDP leaders to positions of power. In March 2010, President Mubarak issued a decree in accordance with Article 82 of the Constitution to give Prime Minister Nazif executive power while Mubarak underwent gallbladder surgery in Germany.
Following the protests that began on January 25, 2011, former President Mubarak dismissed the cabinet, including Nazif, on January 29. On February 12, Egypt’s Attorney General issued a travel ban against Nazif and on February 20, his assets were frozen. On March 19, the chief of the Central Auditing Organization said he was submitting reports to the Attorney General on a corruption case involving Nazif, who was detained on April 10.
