Essam Sharaf

Sharaf was born in Giza in 1952.

It is noted that he is the first Egyptian prime minister to give a monthly State-of-the-Union address (since Aziz Sedki 1972-1973).

After receiving his BSc in civil engineering from Cairo University in 1975, he went to Purdue University where he continued his studies, receiving his MSc Eng in 1980 and his PhD in 1984.

Sharaf took a post as a visiting assistant professor at Purdue in 1984 before becoming assistant professor of highway and traffic engineering at Cairo University the following year.

In 1990, he was an assistant professor of civil engineering at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia.

He returned to Cairo University in 1991, becoming a professor of highway engineering in 1996 while working as senior advisor for the transportation and aviation department in Zuhair Fayez Partnership (ZFP) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Sharaf was the senior advisor to the Egyptian minister of transport in 1999 and the senior technical advisor to the municipality of Al Ain in the UAE in 2003.

He joined the National Democratic Party and became a member of its policy secretariat.

He served as Minister of Transportation from 2004 to 2005.

He served as Egyptian minister of transportation from 13 July 2004 to 31 December 2005.

He resigned due to differences that cropped up between him and Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif.

Nazif decided to put the Egypt Engineers Association under state control, a move that meant confiscation of union funds and property by the government.

Sharaf later claimed that these events led to the Qalyoub rail accident in 2006.

Following his resignation, Sharaf returned to academia, accepting a post at Cairo University, where he remained a vocal critic of the Mubarak regime, particularly with respect to its handling of Egypt's public transportation infrastructure.

During this time he also served as an advisor to Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority, and established the Egypt Scientific Society together with Mohamed ElBaradei, Ahmed Zewail and other Egyptian scientists.

Essam Abdel-Aziz Sharaf (عصام عبد العزيز شرف, ; born 1952) is an Egyptian academic who was the Prime Minister of Egypt from 3 March 2011 to 7 December 2011.

Sharaf was present and active at the Tahrir square protests during the 2011 Revolution, which endeared him to the leaders of the democracy movement and led them to suggest his name to the Military Council as a possible replacement for Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik.

He was asked by Egypt's governing military council to form a government on 3 March 2011, following Shafik's resignation.

On 4 March, he addressed crowds of pro-democracy activists at Tahrir Square shortly after Friday prayers, an unusual move for an Egyptian politician.

Sharaf appeared on stage with Mohamed Beltagy, a Muslim Brotherhood leader.

In his speech he said "I draw my legitimacy from you" and reiterated his commitment to democratic transition, but pleaded for patience.

Sharaf was appointed prime minister on 3 March 2011, being the first post-revolution premier of Egypt and replaced Ahmad Shafiq in the post.

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 and 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.

During the first formation of the cabinet, he removed some very unpopular members of his cabinet, including Foreign Minister Ahmed AbulGheit, inducted many of figures who were traditionally in the opposition during the Mubarak Era, such as minister of tourism Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour and minister of Social Solidarity and Justice, Gouda Abdel Khalek but retaining many ministers of the last cabinet such as Hassan Younes, minister of Electricity and Power, Fayza AboulNaga, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation.

Under the pressure of sit-ins in Tahrir Square calling for speedier reforms, he was forced to shuffle his cabinet accepting as many as four resignation from ministers associated with the pre-revolution era, including his deputy renowned lawmaker, Yehia El-Gamal.

Sharaf appointed veteran economist Hazem Beblawi and Ali El Selmy, a leader of the liberal Wafd party, as deputy prime ministers on 17 July 2011.

Beblawi, a former undersecretary of the UN's Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, was assigned the economic policy in the new cabinet, while El Selmy was assigned the country's "democratic transition".

As time progressed, it became apparent to Sharaf and the Egyptian public that full power resides in the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF).

It had always been the head of state who controlled Egyptian politics, rather than the head of government.

Sharaf's cabinet was laden with remnants of the Mubarak era, ministers he was still incapable of moving without SCAF support.

As the transitional period appeared to expand, the demands became even more aggressive and he was accused from not doing enough to being inactive and complacent and even to the point of being anti-revolution.

The transitional government and the SCAF were neither intended as a true wide-scale legislative body, nor was it imbued with the popular mandate to enact macroeconomic and major political "decisions" and "policy making," beyond the deconstruction of the Mubarak state, managing the country during the transition while restoring security on the streets, and working on establishing the constitution and/or government that would lead Egypt into its Second Republic.

But instead, Sharaf and SCAF engaged in debates and policy-making on far-reaching matters such as the minimum wage, progressive taxation and even recently somewhat discussing the terms of Camp David Accords, not with the acceptable purpose of stimulating discussion for future governments, but for the actual sake of immediate legislating.

Additionally, as reports came out that the SCAF had refused the resignation of unpopular ministers in the cabinet, including Sharaf himself as many as eight times, Sharaf's leadership was largely viewed as a cabinet with a ceremonial role, acting solely on SCAF's mandates rather than having any true independent executive power.

Sharaf's greatest problem appeared to be reforming the country's security apparatus, which appeared to be more complex of a task that will require more time than what was demanded by the people.