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Name: Tarek El Mahdi
Position(s): Governer of New Valley
DoB:
Previous Positions: Former SCAF Member, General Supervisor of State TV at Maspero, leader of the army's Air Defense Forces
Youtube Channel: see videos below

Overview: 
  • Was SCAF's man in Maspero, with a few accounts saying he did a good job
  • He is now governer of the New Valley governorate
  • Had a shootout on Monday, March 12, 2012 as he was attempting to prevent a robbery of some sort
  • Had some tension with Tahrir square crowd, being prevented from speaking there once
Full Hour and a Half Interview with General Mahdy
Random clips of Tarek El Mahdy

Post Revolution Events and Issues

Appointment as governer of the New Valler governorate (mid-2011)
  • Tarek el-Mahdy was relieved as Supervisor of State TV at Maspero and appointed Governor of the New Valley, a backwater area at best (see 
Shooutout in New Valley Governorate (2/2012)
  • A security source said Mahdy was following up on a notification that he had received on Monday from Hamdy Abdel Mawgoud, member of the Shura Council, saying a group of men were stealing parts of the railway line linking the Abu Tartour phosphate plant with the city of Safaga. 

Other Links: News, Blogs and Commentary

  • Personal Information (per a blog post on Zeinobia's great blog)
              He graduated from War University ("Koleya 7arbeya) in 1973 just before the October war by a few months - and he is of course he is a 1973 war veteran. He received many medals and also took a lot of military courses in Air defense forces. He is married and got 2 boys and one girl.
  • El Mahdy at Tahrir square (protestors kicked him out)
                  Major general Tarek El Mahdy of SCAF has visited Tahrir Square , we do not know the reason of the visit yet but we know that he was speaking to the protesters at one of the stages and that they refused to listen forcing him to leave.   He said that he went there with the intention to speak with the protesters on hunger strike in order to convince them to break their fast and to take a list of the detainees' names at military prisons. 
          Major general El Mahdy was appointed to oversee the national Egyptian TV and radio. He is popular in Maspero as far as I know.     Tarek Al Mahdy spoke on TV Night talk shows about the incident. 
  • Positive assessment of El Mahdy's role as General Supervisor of State TV at Maspero 
             Recently, I had a chat with my aunt who’s worked at State TV for some 20 years, and she talked to me about el-Mahdy’s time in Maspero compared to other media officials. She recalls Sami el-Sherif and Osama Heikal, the newly appointed Minister of (mis)Information, as complete buffoons: men who are managerially and administratively inept, inefficient, and couldn’t see through the webs of corruption and profiteering in their institutions. On the other hand, she genuinely considered Tarek el-Mahdy to be one the best individiuals to have come across Maspero in a long time. On media reform, she claimed the problem was that he’s encountered opposition and a kind of insubordination within the institution itself from some of the higher orders and managers (see the video above). However with respect to financial matters and managerial decisions, el-Mahdy was much more successful. He was also prone to discussing decisions with the lower employees before taking them and was apparently well-liked among them. He had managed to eliminate a lot of corruption as well.
           Throughout Anas el-Fiqi’s tenure, a common and persistent corruption scheme involved State TV contracting private production companies and studios to produce its programs and episodes, while the vast number of studios at the State TV lay in disuse. Most of these companies were owned by former officials and members of the NDP; a basic example of state funds being channeled into the pockets of individuals close to the regime. Tarek el-Mahdy decided not to renew the contracts with any of these production companies, moving all the work to the Maspero building instead. He took a series of other similar decisions, and simultaneously worked on improving efficiency. When the new financial year started in June, el-Mahdy had managed to save some 80 million LE in spending! (90 million LE according to al-Masry al-Youm) That is, spending that was going mostly to businessmen connected to the former regime and who profited off the corruption schemes. The man didn’t mind making enemies. (P.S.: check the links, most of what my aunt told me had is confirmed by news reports but apparently no one paid much attention)