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Egypt operates under a multi-party semi-presidential system where the executive power is divided between the President and the Prime Minister. Egypt holds regular presidential and parliamentary elections. The last Presidential Election was held in 1999 and is scheduled to be held in October 2005. However, there is expressed concern from international human rights observers concerning freedom of speech and government interference in local elections.

Parliament meets for one nine-month session each year: under special circumstances the President of the Republic can call an additional session. Even though the powers of the Parliament have increased since the 1980 Amendments of the Constitution, the Parliament remains to lack the powers to balance the excessive powers of the President.

The November 2000 Parliamentary Elections are generally regarded to have been more transparent and better executed than past elections. This is due to the new Law put into force establishing universal judicial monitoring of polling stations. On the other hand, opposition parties continue to lodge credible complaints about electoral manipulation by the government. There are significant restrictions on the political process and freedom of expression for non-governmental organizations, including professional syndicates and organizations promoting respect for human rights which have been greatly loosened up in the past five years.

In the Coptic Church only men may be ordained, and they must be married before they are ordained, if they wish to be married. In this respect they follow the same practices as does the Eastern Orthodox Church.

The capital city, Cairo, is Africa's largest city and has been renowned for centuries as a center of learning, culture and commerce of Egypt.

It was the Muslim Arabs who introduced Islam and the Arabic language in the Seventh Century changing Egypt into a linguistically "Arab" nation once and for all. Muslim rulers nominated by the Islamic Caliphate remained in control of Egypt for the next six centuries. A local military caste, the Mamluks took control about 1250 and continued to govern even after the conquest of Egypt by the Ottoman Turks in 1517.

The Ancient Egyptian language, which formed a separate branch among the family of Afro-Asiatic languages, was among the first written languages, and is known from hieroglyphic inscriptions preserved on monuments and sheets of papyrus. The Coptic language, the only extant descendant of Egyptian, is today the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

Egypt has endured as a unified state for more than 5,000 years, and archeological evidence indicates that a developed Egyptian society has existed for much longer. Egyptians take pride in their pharaonic heritage and in their descent from what many consider mankind's earliest civilization. The Arabic word for Egypt is Misr, which originally connoted "civilization" or "metropolis".

The government has struggled to ready the economy for the new millennium through economic reform and massive investment in communications and physical infrastructure, much financed from U.S. aid. Egypt is the second largest recipient of such funds from the United States after Israel. Economic conditions are starting to improve considerably after a period of stagnation due to the adoption of more liberal economic policies by the government, as well as increased revenues from tourism and a booming stock market.