Ahmed Shafik

Ahmed Mohamed Shafik Zaki (أحمد محمد شفيق زكى, ; born 25 November 1941) is an Egyptian politician and former presidential candidate.

Shafik was born in the Heliopolis district of Cairo on 25 November 1941.

His parents were prominent members of Egyptian society, with his father, Mohamed Shafiq Zaki, serving as undersecretary at the ministry of irrigation and his mother, Naja Alwi, being the daughter of a noted ophthalmologist.

After completing his schooling at the Heliopolis Secondary School, he attended the Egyptian Air Academy from where he graduated in 1962 at the age of 21 and became a member of the Egyptian Air Force (EAF).

Later in his career, he gained a master's degree in military science; a Fellowship of High War College from Nasser Military Academy; a Fellowship of Combined Arms from the High War College in Paris; a Fellowship of the National Defense College from Nasser Military Academy; and a PhD in "The National Strategy of Outer-Space".

Air Marshal Ahmed Shafik received the highest medals and merits during his service.

As a young officer, Shafik served as a Mig-19 and Mig-21 fighter pilot and was later appointed as fighter air squadron commander.

During the War of Attrition (1967–1970), Shafik saw active service as the Multi-Task Airwing Commander.

Subsequently, he took up a post as an air base commander.

During the 1973 October War, Shafik was a senior fighter pilot under Hosni Mubarak's command.

Shafik shot down two Israeli aircraft during the war on 14 October 1973.

In 1984, Shafik was appointed military attaché in the Egyptian Embassy in Rome.

He continued in this role until 1986.

In 1986, he was promoted to Air Commodore and became commander of a Group and Mig-21 Airbase.

During the CSF conscription riot of 1986, President Mubarak wanted the Armed Forces to crush the revolt.

He relied on the Air Force to intimidate and bomb some CSF rebels in Cairo and Upper Egypt.

The commander who was tasked with the actual execution of the operation was Brigadier/Air Commodore Ahmed Shafik, as Deputy Chief of Operations (Fighter-Bomber) for the Central Air Region.

From 1988 to 1991, Shafik served several military senior command positions before he was appointed as the Commander of the Air Operations Department.

In September 1991, Shafik was appointed as the Air Force's Chief of Staff, holding this position until April 1996, when he became Commander of the Egyptian Air Force.

After a career as a fighter pilot, and squadron, wing and group commander, Shafik was the Commander of the Egyptian Air Force from 1996 to 2002, reaching the rank of air marshal.

During his 40 years of service in the Egyptian Air Force as a fighter pilot, he flew several types of fighter jets including the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17, Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19, Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 and the Dassault Mirage 2000; he also acted as the wing commander for the Egyptian Air Force acrobatic team.

He is also fully qualified on the American-built McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II and the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon.

Thereafter he served in the government as Minister of Civil Aviation from 2002 to 2011.

In 2002 he resigned from military service and was succeeded by his chief-of-staff Air Marshal Magdy Galal Sharawi.

After retiring from the Air Force, Shafiq became the Minister of Civil Aviation on 18 September 2002, not long after the Ministry's formation.

Whilst he was the minister for civil aviation, he oversaw improvements in EgyptAir and helped construct a new third terminal at Cairo International Airport which was completed in 2008 and opened for commercial operations on 27 April 2009.

He was a senior commander in the Egyptian Air Force and later served as Prime Minister of Egypt from 29 January 2011 to 3 March 2011 under Hosni Mubarak.

He was appointed as prime minister by President Hosni Mubarak on 29 January 2011 in response to the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, making him the last prime minister to serve as part of Mubarak's administration.

He remained in office for only one month, resigning on 3 March 2011, one day after a contentious talk show confrontation in which Alaa Al Aswany, a prominent Egyptian novelist, accused him of being a Mubarak regime holdover.

He continued the position until succeeding Ahmed Nazif as the Prime Minister of Egypt on 29 January 2011.

During the course of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, Shafik was named prime minister by then president Hosni Mubarak on 29 January 2011.

Shafik's period in office as prime minister was short-lived, lasting just over a month, after he resigned on 3 March due to pressure from protestors and the opposition.

They had objected to Shafik staying on as PM, having been seen as one of Mubarak's old guard.

Shafik was alleged to have been a member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that took over power after Mubarak's departure on 11 February 2011, although initial reporting only reflected a poor understanding of the makeup of the SCAF immediately following Mubarak's fall.

Shafik was succeeded by Essam Sharaf after he stepped down.

Shafik resigned from office one day after a contentious interview on the Egyptian ONTV satellite network in which he was confronted by Alaa Al Aswany, author of The Yacoubian Building, on Reem Maged's talk show Baladna bel Masry.

Al Aswany was highly critical of Shafik during the broadcast, representing one of the first televised public criticisms of a high-ranking government official in Egyptian history.

At one point, Al Aswany said about Shafik, "if your son had been one of those who got run over by the police cars, you would not have remained silent like that."

Al Aswany furthermore accused Shafik of being a holdover of the regime that Egyptians had struggled to topple, and that he was unfit to represent Egyptians in the post-revolution era.

He narrowly lost out in the 2012 Egyptian presidential elections to Mohamed Morsi, the candidate of the Freedom and Justice Party, gaining 48.27% of the vote, compared to Morsi's 51.73%.