The high commissioner, Sir Reginald Wingate, was asked in vain for authorization to send the permanent delegation (Wafd) of the party, constituted by Zaghlūl, to the inter-allied supreme council to deal with national demands. The ferment then gained every class of the population; the Muslim leaders of the famous mosque-university of al-Azhar made common cause with the Coptic priests; workers, peasants and students took to the streets and the revolt quickly spread to all of Lower Egypt. The British repression was no less violent; Zaghlūl and a group of his partisans were deported to Malta. Marshal Allenby, appointed high commissioner with full powers, worked to restore the situation by obtaining the release of Zaghlūl and opening negotiations with the nationalists. While the Wafd was going to Paris to present, with little success, its votes to the inter-allied commission charged with elaborating the peace conditions, a British commission of inquiry, chaired by the colonial minister Lord Milner, concluded, in March 1920, after 4 months of stay in Egypt, in favor of the suppression of the protectorate and the granting, under certain reservations, of independence to Egypt. The laborious negotiations, which were subsequently entered into in London, however, continued until November 1921 without any result. Faced with the new unrest that arose in the country and the impossibility of establishing a government favorable to England, repressive means were again resorted to (deportation of Zaghlūl to the Seychelles); until, having ascertained the obvious drawbacks of this system, on February 28, 1922, the British government induced itself to recognize the independence of Egypt, subject to four points which should have been the subject of further negotiations: 1) security of British imperial communications; 2) defense of Egypt against possible external aggressions; 3) protection of minorities and foreign interests in Egypt; 4) question of the Sūdān. Pending an agreement on these issues, the British military occupation would be maintained. On March 15, 1922, Sultan Fu’ād assumed the title of king of independent Egypt; and, despite the opposition of the nationalists, he instructed the leader of the moderate party, Sarwat (Tharwat) Pasha, to form a ministry and to elaborate the constitutional charter of the new kingdom (promulgated on April 19, 1923).themember every 60,000 residents) elected by direct suffrage. Parliament was given legislative and political functions; to the crown, the exercise of executive power through responsible ministers. The constitution (very similar to the Belgian one) guaranteed citizens the exercise of individual freedoms typical of democratic regimes. Following the result of the first elections (190 nationalists and 21 moderates) Zaghlūl Pascià, just back from exile, was charged with forming a new ministry (January 24, 1924). The negotiations on the four reserved points, conducted in London with the Labor government in the autumn of that same year, did not lead to any agreement. The assassination of Sirdār Lee Stack (November 19), which took place in Cairo at the hands of some fanatics, instead it induced the new (conservative) British government to order the withdrawal of Egyptian troops from Sūdān and to suppress the condominium regime. Zaghlūl, who resigned, was replaced in power by Zīwer Pascià with the task of providing for new elections. The parties advocating the country’s complete independence (Wafdists, liberal-constitutionalists and extremist nationalists), who had previously disagreed on the means to achieve it, struck a pact of alliance that gave them a new victory at the polls. ‛Adlī Yeghen Pascià appeared before the new parliament (10 June 1926) with a program of resistance to English politics; but in the short space of a year his position proved unsustainable in the face of the energetic British attitude. A few weeks later, the death of Zaghlūl Pascià came to further disorient the coalition parties, causing a period of crisis in the nationalist forces. Likewise, the hopes placed on King Fu’ad’s visit to London and in the conversations of the new prime minister, ‛Abd al-Khāliq Sarwat with the British minister Sir Austen Chamberlain, were also disappointed.
After a brief experiment with Muṣṭafà an-Naḥḥās Pascià – head of the Wafd after the death of Zaghlūl – the sovereign entrusted power to Moḥammed Maḥmūd Pascià (27 June 1928), a constitutional liberal, who tried to revive the economic and financial situation of the compromised country from continuing political unrest and parliamentary interference. Having obtained from the king the dissolution of the chamber and the adjournment of the elections for a three-year period, Maḥmūd set about implementing a program of reorganization of public life through greater national discipline, a series of social measures and a close collaboration with the High Conservative Commissioner Lord Lloyd, who succeeded Lord Allenby in October 1925. Moving to London to try to settle the Anglo-Egyptian dissensions, he found himself facing the a) eviction of British troops from Egypt and permanent occupation of the Suez Canal area for the defense of imperial communications; b) conclusion of an Anglo-Egyptian alliance; c) possibility for Egypt to enter the League of Nations; d) British patronage to obtain the reform of the capitulation regime; And) exclusive English dominion in the Sūdān. England also renounced the protection of foreigners and allowed the application of taxes and duties towards them, but on the other hand demanded the discharge of non-English foreign officials and the control of staff appointments in the mixed judiciary. Since the project had to be presented, according to the pacts, to the approval of the Egyptian parliament, the resignation of Maḥmūd Pascià was inevitable, but he had not managed to obtain the support of the Wafd. After a brief ministry ‛Adlī Pascià, the result of the elections again favorable to the Wafd (January 1930) led to the return to power of an-Naḥḥās Pascià, who found himself d ‘ agreement with parliament to resist British claims about the Sūdān and to ask the sovereign for new guarantees of constitutional freedoms. On the other hand, King Fu’ād, convinced of the impossibility of resolving the situation through the parliamentary regime, decided to renounce the collaboration of the Wafd: Ismāīl Ṣidqī Pascià replaced en-Naḥḥās as the presidency of the council, parliament and senate were closed and then dissolved definitely. New riots occurred in the main centers of the Delta (July 1931), but this did not distract the government from the proposed program. Ismāīl Ṣidqī Pascià replaced en-Naḥḥās as the presidency of the council, parliament and senate were closed and then permanently dissolved. New riots occurred in the main centers of the Delta (July 1931), but this did not distract the government from the proposed program. Ismāīl Ṣidqī Pascià replaced en-Naḥḥās as the presidency of the council, parliament and senate were closed and then permanently dissolved. New riots occurred in the main centers of the Delta (July 1931), but this did not distract the government from the proposed program.
On 22 October 1930 the king approved the changes to the constitution, proposed by Ṣidqī Pascià together with a new electoral law tending to make the work of the executive power less precarious in the face of parliamentary demagogy. The electoral districts were fixed by the constitution itself, rather than depending on the number of residents, and the system of double-level elections was also restored. Under the presidency of the same prime minister, a “People’s Party” was also set up, destined to oppose the two opposition parties (Wafd and liberal-constitutional) and constituted, as well as by the followers of the new government, by dissidents from every sector. Despite the boycott of the elections, decided by the followers of en-Naḥḥās, Maḥmūd, Zīwer and ‛Adlī Yeghen (and motivated by an appeal to the sovereign).