Ismail Sidky Pasha (Arabic: إسماعيل صدقي;[a] 15 June 1875 – 9 July 1950) was an Egyptian politician who served as Prime Minister of Egypt from 1930 to 1933 and again in 1946.
[1] Sidky graduated from Collège des Frères in Cairo and the Khedival Law School; his classmates at law school include Egyptian intellectual Ahmad Lufti al-Sayyid, future prime ministers Tawfik Nessim and Abdel Khalek Sarwat Pasha, and the Egyptian nationalist Mustafa Kamil.
When World War I began, Sidky was in Vichy while Khedive Abbas was deposed for his uncle Hussein Kamil, creating the Sultanate of Egypt as a British Protectorate.
However, the Wafd was denied an opportunity to speak in Paris, instead Sidky was deported to Malta with party founder Saad Zaghloul and other loyalists in March 1919, thus igniting the 1919 Egyptian revolution.
[4] The public outcry forced Britain to allow the Wafdist leaders to make their case in Paris, followed and censured by British authorities.
[5] Sidky was disillusioned by the Wafd's plan in Paris, believing that foreign recognition would not come, instead arguing to return to continue the struggle in Egypt, especially to fight the Milner Mission.
[8] High Commissioner of Egypt Edmund Allenby, Sarwat and Sidky held negotiations between the Egyptians and British regarding the specifics of Britain's role in Egyptian affairs; chiefly the end of the Protectorate, the re-establishment of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a bicameral parliament, and a reduction of foreign influence to an advisory position.
These negotiations between nationalist factions and the British dragged on throughout the backdrop of public protests and riots, eventually culminating in the Unilateral Declaration of Egyptian Independence in 1922.
[10] Sidky feared Zaghloul's return, since a Wafdist parliament would be at odds with the King, thus created more riots and instability that the British can exploit and argue that Egypt was not 'ready to govern itself'.
Sidky, around this time, negotiated a deal with Italy's Benito Mussolini over the Egyptian-Libyan border, where Egypt would get Sallum and Italian Libya would keep the Al Jaghbub Oasis it received in the Treaty of London.
Bloody riots swept the country, as troops fired on protesting civilians, killing two dozen people by 15 July.
[20] On 3 February 1933 the Legislative Assembly of the Mixed Court of Appeals approved a law decreed by King Fuad and signed by the King, Sidki, and Egyptian Minister of Justice Ahmed Ali relative to properties in process of foreclosure with the Mixed Court System, known as Law 7 of 1933.
[21][22][23] Having begun the process of mortgage loan reforms in 1933, subsequent governments followed essentially the same practices, all in the context of foreclosure pressures experienced during the global economic depression of the 1930s, e.g., decret-loi no.
While he signed a draft agreement with Ernest Bevin, negotiations later failed over disagreements on the status of Sudan.