How did Mubarak come to power?
Mubarak, who rose to power through the Egyptian Air Force, became vice president under Anwar el-Sadat in 1975. In 1981, Sadat was assassinated by right-wing Islamists who opposed peace with Israel. Mubarak was standing next to Sadat during the attack; he survived and ascended to the presidency. He won his second six-year term in 1987, his third in 1993, his fourth in 1999 and a fifth in 2005, despite countrywide protests by the Egyptian Movement for Change, or the Kefaya movement. Elections in Egypt are not free; according to the international organization Human Rights Watch, independent candidacy is all but impossible under constitutional rules. The development of new political parties is similarly curtailed. There is also little electoral oversight, according to a 2010 Human Rights Watch report. In the 2010 elections, the organization said, only 700 judges were responsible for monitoring fraud and violence at 35,000 polling stations.
