Essam Sharaf - Premiership

Premiership

Sharaf was appointed prime minister on 3 March 2011, being the first post-revolution premier of Egypt and replaced Ahmad Shafiq. Although Sharaf was suggested for the premiership by the crowds in Tahrir square, by the end of his term it was largely viewed as anti-revolutionary. During the first couple of months, he removed some very unpopular members of his cabinet, including Foreign Minister Ahmed AbulGheit, dissolved the unpopular and corrupt local & municipal councils, and enacted a series of decisions and policies that were met with fanfare. Even on the personal level, he was a media and street darling. He was even pictured with Egyptians eating the cheap Egyptian national dish "Fuul" (fava beans) in a simple restaurant with his family, his son paid a traffic ticket rather than evading it as he could have, and other similar stories of a simple and humble demeanor flooded the social networks and street talk. He was later blamed for failure to properly address a number of incidents that are crucial to national security such as the worsening security issues, reforming the security apparatus, sectarian violence, solving workers' pay grievances or reforming corrupt national media. His government had mandated a number of laws that were controversial, such as Anti-assembly and Anti-strike laws.